I’m not one to wildly embrace new ideas. I’m much more cautious and risk-averse than my husband is, so our marriage has seen us both move out of our comfort zones to a mutually agreeable way of deciding. I’m braver now, but he’s had to gain patience and learn how to slow down & explain a lot.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about a post by Seth Godin about sunk costs.
As someone very prone to guilt and caution, it’s hard for me to ignore money I’ve already spent.
This is evident in decisions like my summer resolutions.
Or getting rid of clothes that I bought because they were on sale, not because I loved them. They sit in my closet, unworn, but I can’t get rid of them because *I spent the money.*
However, I’ve also been reading Joshua Becker‘s newsletter about minimalism.
Every two weeks, I’m reminded about simplicity and what truly matters . . . and it’s not stuff.
So, in fits and starts, I’m making progress in reducing what I own. I’m still terrible about just throwing things away; I’d much rather give things to people who need or want them. Even thrift stores charge the needy, so I’m constantly looking for those who will give away what I give them.
For example, I was incredibly motivated to clean out my closet when local students from Nepal asked for items to take home with them just after the earthquake. Mark is going to haul a box of books and CDs to the local library — they sort through and pick what they want for the circulating library and the rest go to the Friends group. So I feel less guilty about getting them out of the house. We’ve sold some old jewelry, & Mark has hauled off scrap metal, tires, & stuff he’d accumulated outside.
I hear mixed reviews of the latest bestseller by Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Anyone care to weigh in on that?
What writers, bloggers, or books are stewing in your brain? How do you deal with sunk costs?
Hiya KCL. Regarding sunk costs, one of my few virtues–assuming that it is, in fact, a virtue–is that once I have spent the money on something, it is as though that money never existed. No kidding, I can’t even remember how much I’ve spent on a purchase. I don’t recall how much my car cost me…or even my house. It’s a little embarrassing, but reassuring at the same time, since this allows me to have few qualms about jettisoning some inappropriate purchase because of its original exorbitant price-tag. My exception: art supplies. To those I cling as a shipwreck survivor to a bit of flotsam; we’re talking death-grip. Oh, well–consistency is overrated. L, ‘g, js
You have more virtues than you like to let on, js! I don’t know if I can manage to forget big purchases, but I seem quite able to forget a bunch of other details in life, so maybe the money will soon follow!