Stingy Behavior

I fear that in my quest to be debt free and to increase my savings, I'm becoming stingy. I like thinking that I'm just being ... cautious with my money. But that's just putting lipstick on the pig.

I just don't like spending money anymore. I think and rethink every purchase, even grocery items. I bought myself a fabulous tote bag the other day and have been halfway beating myself up about it ever since. "Did I really need it? What else could I have done with that $60?" The fact is that I needed to do something nice for myself; I've been depriving myself of things a lot lately. And my compromise was that at least this bag is functional and girly -- two things I love. It will come in very handy and look fabulous on the cruise and beyond. And it was less than a 100 bucks.

What's starting to happen is that there are things I should be doing or would like to do, but because they require taking money out of the bank, I don't want to do them, even though that was the purpose of saving some money -- to be able to do things like these. And though I've earmarked certain deposits for specific things ($500 in January was supposed to be earmarked for cruise-related items), I don't want to take that money out for those things. I don't want to decrease my savings balance; I only want it to go up.

Let's take that $500 example: Instead of withdrawing that for the cruise in June, I'd like instead to have saved enough money between now and then -- with freelance money and overtime -- to use instead. The problem, then, is do I deposit that money (the smart thing, since it would earn interest), or keep it out and tucked away? The problem with putting it in savings is that once it goes in the bank, I won't want to withdraw it, because I won't want to see the balance go down.

See?

I've gotta find a way to loosen up a bit.