Quote:
Originally Posted by Boozlefoot
Being a man of relatively simple means, I have to save like the dickens for astro gear. Please tell me, when I am relatively flush with readies (as in tax return time), the level of available advertised gear in the classifieds is at an all time low. What will now happen, is that I will divert the funds to some other item (probably not needed). Having said that, no sooner will that occur, then the item I have been saving for will pop up in multiples at bargain prices!  |
Hi Boozlefoot,
That sounds like a classic case of the fiscal application of Sod’s Law - one of the most powerful and irresistible forces in the universe.
Although it’s probably just due to the fact that when everybody else gets a tax return too then they don’t need to raise money by selling stuff. For a while….
Timing is everything...
Sadly, the only known cure is some version of the method Alex recommends - learning the knack of hanging on to sums of money. Call it “retaining some working capital” if you like.
Changing lifelong patterns of behaviour is alway very hard but there are some tricks that can help. A friend of ours who wanted to give up smoking set it up so that the cost of failing would be higher than he was willing to pay! He wrote out a large donation cheque to an organisation whose ideas and practices he absolutely loathed. He put it in an envelope, addressed it and put a stamp on it, and then gave it to his partner with the instructions that if they saw him with a cigarette again they should immediately post the letter - with no questions asked. He never smoked again, and eventually they tore the letter up.
A major asset in the quest to hang onto a stash of cash is a knack for budgeting. Some kind of record keeping - spreadsheets, etc are a great tool, but somebody who is enthusiastic about using those tools can explain them to somebody who doesn’t like them until they’re both blue in the face and it’s unlikely to make a damn’s worth of difference - they still won’t do it.
Luckily, I’m pretty good at budgeting and hanging on to some working capital, so… just post me the all cash from your next tax return and I’ll only ever let you have half of it back to spend. And I’ll want a plausible excuse too.
And then I won’t let you you have any more until you’ve saved back the amount you just spent.
Trust me? Of course you can…. I’m some nice guy on the internet who you’ve never met…. What could possibly go wrong?
Cheers,
Chris
