I May Be Cheap But I Still Splurge

I was talking to a friend last night and something came up about how cheap I've gotten.  Our favorite local hangout (bar) is pretty upscale and because of their prices we haven't spent nearly as much time there as we used to.  We just can't justify it.  But, we still go occasionally and splurge (of course, we try to get there when Happy Hour prices are still in effect).

There are a lot of things I've declared myself just "too cheap" to do anymore.  I won't be spending $100 on a pair of jeans, or buying my shampoo at the salon. My shampoo now comes extremely cheap thanks to the local drugstore sales and coupons, and when I head into a retail store I have returned to all that I was taught when I was young, and head straight for the clearance rack.  We won't be dining out at restaurants where we end up paying over $100 for the two of us, without a really good coupon (or Groupon). 

But, we do still splurge.  We just do it less often.  A few years ago it was nothing for us to go out of town and get a hotel room once a month (sometimes for 2 nights in a row), however now it has to be in our budget and it's very rare.  We did it last weekend for the first time since New Years (and NY was the first time in about 4 months).  Instead of just jumping at the first thing that comes along we price compare a lot more these days.  We will also still splurge on going out.  We have a decent portion of our budget set aside just for that, but we use it much more wisely.  It's funny how when you are spending cash and you know your cash is limited you will go much further out of your way to get a good deal and make sure you enjoy it.  Instead of just going out to eat because we are bored or don't want to cook, we now go out to eat because we want to eat at a particular restaurant.  And if, for some reason, our dinner at that restaurant is not all we expected it to be, I will write and complain and those complaints usually result in our next meal being on them.

It's not that we can't afford to do more, we've just changed our priorities.  One of our priorities is still to enjoy life and live it, it's just moved down a couple of rungs on the ladder of importance and has been replaced with things like "paying off the house" and "saving for the future".