It's Complicated (Even with Limited Rainy Days Left)

What word or expression would you say most closely describes your relationship with money? For me? It's complicated. 

My complicated relationship with money began, in part, thanks to an incessant parental refrain I heard from early childhood through adolescence - "Be sure to save for a rainy day!" There's no blame attached to this recollection. Given what my parents endured as teenagers at the height of the Great Depression - hardships I cannot begin to comprehend - their rainy-day mantra was understandable. But when combined with their oft-repeated claim that their biggest disagreements were about money - specifically how to stretch each paycheck while raising four children - the messaging I internalized was bound to complicate my attitude about money. I was also taught - as I'm confident many of you were - that talking about money, especially how much you make, was impolite. More complications. 

Inheriting the legacy of my parent's dire experiences living through an economic apocalypse was only the beginning. With that foundation, I moved into my undergraduate years in the late 60s and, for better or worse, embraced the ethos of anti-materialism that suffused much campus life at the time. Over those impressionable years, I found myself most drawn to folks who treated money as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. All my tribe knew we would eventually have to make a living but we spent more time, more energy, and had a lot more conversations about how to make a life and how to avoid having our things own us vs. the other way around. That idealism informed my decisions back then and continued doing so for the coming decades. A by-product of that? More complications, as mature adult life and the necessity for making enough money to support a child into her young adult years became my highest priority. Included in that equation? A pledge that she would finish college with no debt. More rainy day saving, minimal spending on self, complications.  

At 76+ years old, I want for nothing and can afford to do much of what I want.  And the number of potential rainy days left to me to save for is no longer a factor. Why then does my relationship with and attitude about money still bedevil me? What prevents me - aside from stubborn habit - from spending money on myself whenever the spirit moves me? It's complicated.