Buyers guilt - spending vs saving

I also want to be comfortable enough to buy into or maintain a certain lifestyle, which does extend to cars and motorcycles. A perfect case of can't have your cake and eat it too.

Sudarshan42 recently shared this with other BHPians.

When it comes to matters of the future, I'm a hopeless worrier. I worry about saving up enough to be able to do what I want (a mix of ecological conservation and writing, but that's for another time). I also want to be comfortable enough to buy into or maintain a certain lifestyle, which does extend to cars and motorcycles. A perfect case of can't have your cake and eat it too.

This pathological obsession with keeping an eye out on the future has basically rendered me catatonic in the present. I'm unable to follow-through on any decisions related to buying that dream car or bike simply because I feel guilty that the money going into the purchase is not being saved or invested for my future. This Buyer's Guilt as I call it extends to just about all other facets of my life, where I end up treating money as my little workers, eking out a little interest here, a little interest there- all the while holding back some of my other interests.

Don't get me wrong- I'm doing alright. I have enough already in my early thirties to support a family of 3 and take nearly a decade off work (provided all luxuries are set aside). So why am I stuck in this quagmire?

I try and attribute it to being minimalistic, or a vague attempt at being less materialistic in this never-ending cycle of consumption that we all find ourselves in. But let's face it- those are labelled excuses for something you don't want to be in the first place. There are ways of giving back to the environment without having to live like a hermit. Truth is if all of us had our limits removed, the word minimalism wouldn't fit into any of our vocabularies.

What else is it then? Could it be my middle-class grooming that teaches me to squeeze value from everything I own to its absolute hilt? Where the lives of appliances, toothpaste tubes, soaps, paint on the walls, vehicle service intervals, the number of characters in a tweet, the charge on my phone, checkout times at hotels, housework extracted from the maid, the precious few minutes saved- everything is maximised till the very last gasp despite being able to afford a little margin in each case.

Whatever the reason, I feel like I'm forgoing my present in pursuit of a supposedly rosy future. While planning for what is yet to come isn't a particularly bad thing in itself, please avoid falling into the trap that I find myself in. I for one probably will practice mindfulness a little more than I merely tell myself to, and I might just go ahead and buy that sweet-inline 4-middleweight-naked-that's-comfy-but-not-as-heavy-as-its-cheaper-predecessor.

Thanks to Sudarshan42 once again! Check out BHPian comments for more insights & information.