You may remember my post a couple weeks ago entitled Day One of No-Social-Life-In-Order-To-Save-Money-To-Travel-In-August has begun, where I explain my theory about having no social life in order to save money for travel. Until yesterday it’s been going pretty good. I’ve still buckled and bought my lunch occasionally, but that’s okay. I’ve been working or hanging at home, but lately I’ve started to feel a little worn out and tired. In all honesty, I haven’t thought much about it. I’ve chalked it up to eating too much sugar, diet soda and general crap and I’ve sworn to get healthy a.s.a.p.
As I sat on my sofa early yesterday morning I contemplated as to whether I should go out and do something for St. Patrick’s Day or stay home and rest. If you’ve already read my previous post, you know I decided to go out and see what the city of Calgary had to offer, and I had a great time. I didn’t think about money or budgets. I thought about living in the moment, enjoying myself and looking for ways to share my days activities with my blog readers. In fact I wrote yesterdays post with a slight Guinness and Kilkenny induced buzz.
Now, you may be asking yourself what the common denominator might be between the above paragraphs and I don’t blame you. Allow me to explain. Are you ready?? I woke up this morning and didn’t dread the thought of crawling out of bed. I started the day by putting my tights on backwards (it’s been like 3 years since I’ve worn tights, I forgot the rules, okay!), then after a quick correction I headed to work, where I found my head to be clear and my mood cheery. I didn’t feel the midday energy drop and I wasn’t watching the clock to see when I could go home. Simply put, I was happy and relaxed.
I cannot be a hermit. I’ve tried and it makes me miserable and very, very tired! I need to be able to go out every once in awhile and enjoy myself. I’m not talking about spending loads of money, but spending some money to give myself a break is worth it in my books. As it is I now have plans to celebrate a staffs’ birthday on the 24th at the Ship & Anchor and then going to Dicken’s Pub April 17th to watch a co-workers’ cousins’ band (The Rose Alarm- check them out on iTunes).
You don’t have to be a hermit to save money! Just find things to do that don’t cost money! I don’t really know many folks in DC because I just moved here, but when I lived in Boston I did stuff all the time with folks and very little of it involved money. You can still have a great social life without spending money, you just have to get out of the “food and alcohol” model of socializing. Once you do that, you’ll find that the rest comes pretty naturally. Alternatively, if your friends are pretty much ONLY of the “food and alcohol” set, just buy less! When I go out to a bar, I buy one beer. One. If it’s a long night (4+ hours) I might buy two. You can have just as good a time sober as you can sloshed.
It’s never a bad idea to have a short-term “reward” for yourself (that costs a little bit of money) even while saving most of your money for travel. It’s a lot like dieting. If you feel like you will never be able to have a doughnut ever again, that diet isn’t going to last long. And while it’s all fine and well to know you have a long-term goal to save for, you have to have a life in the meantime, too. There is balance to be had, and it sounds like you’ve discovered that.