Do Personal Spending Patterns Define Who You Are?
When I was in college, I simply had to have a new truck. It did not matter that I could not really afford it. It did not even matter that the $220 a month payment would be about 50% of my take home pay. Add in over-priced auto insurance, and I was a walking time bomb. It still amazes me to this day that the dealership would give me a loan at all, not to mention 100% financing to a 19-year old kid.
Last night I got to thinking about what that truck said about me as an individual. Sure, I could have bought some broken down beater that would get me to and from school just fine. My friends did not care what kind of vehicle I drove, so what was the motivation behind that purchase? I am not sure, but I felt really, really good behind the wheel of that truck. Looking back on it now, that truck wasn’t all that great. It wasn’t a particularly big truck. It did not even have large tires or custom rims. No. The more I think about it, the more I come to understand that was the selfish child in me screaming for attention.
When I look around society today, I see hundreds of adult children just like the old me. They can barely put food on the table, yet they drive, or even worse, lease a car that is entirely out of their income bracket. I am not saying that people should not have nice things, I am just saying that the things you choose to buy really speaks volumes as to what you truly value.
Where are you spending your money? What does that tell you about the things that you value most in life?
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Time: May 3, 2009, 11:03 am
[...] Dusty asks if Spending Patterns Define Who we Are. [...]
Comment from Do You Dave Ramsey?
Time: May 2, 2009, 9:31 am
Good article… I think our spending does say a lot about us… some of it we don’t even realize IF we’re even trying to pay attention.
On one of my routes home there’s a small house in a low-mid range neighborhood that has a late model Cadillac and late model Lexus barely crammed into thier driveway. Both have custom rims and appear to have all the bells and whistles. They are nice cars but they stand out horribly so when you see the house they’re parked at… they can’t get into the garage no doubt because of all the other junk the owners have purchased along the way.
I’m convinced – and I’ve never seen or met these people – that they are so much more concerned over how people percieve them than for their own security or even comfort.
It’s funny and sad.
Good topic, thanks for sharing!
Dave