To spend or not?

 

So I was thinking whilst drinking my coffee this afternoon about my attitude to money and spending.  Living on a budget and frugally can sometimes be a curse (of course it is rubbish having no money).  Over the last 8 years whilst me and the other have lived together we have had periods where we had enough money and again periods where money has been tight.  And now we are definitely in the money tight period as we only have his wage and we have moved house just 8 months ago and the bills are more here.  Even when we had two wages we were always saving hard to move house and relocate to a area with higher house prices.  But more importantly to eventually be able to start a family and for me to not go back to work and look after baby myself.  But all this saving and thinking hard about money actually sometimes makes it impossible to spend any.

 

Take our old house, we lived there for seven years with rubbish single glazed windows and that house was soooo cold.  We had ice on the inside of the windows in winter (OK we didn't have the heating on tons because we didn't want to spend lots on gas).  After little L was born we were dreading the winter with a small baby in a freezing house and so after a lot of debating we priced up have new double glazing throughout the house and it wasn't as much as we thought.  We got a great family firm to do it and couldn't have been more pleased with the job.  It really was a lot warmer, no drafts etc and to top it off we accepted an offer on the house whilst the windows were being fit (yes so we actually bought the buyers new windows!).  Afterwards and since moving I have thought why didn't we just have the work done sooner??  But somehow being warm is a luxury we have long since accepted we can't afford.

 

Now in our new house we are considering putting a multifuel stove in and taking the gas fire out.  With a good quality stove and we will have to get a HETAs approved engineer to fit it (not because we can't do it but to be covered with insurance etc for the mortgage) and also there is a chance we may need a chimney liner.  So the costs seem to be spiralling a little.  We have the money saved but somehow being warm is a luxury and I just can't decide whether to go ahead, as that money is presently part of the emergency/ rainy day fund.  Other people just spend money left right and centre but me and lots of you out there scrutinise every purchase and spend.

 

So yes sometimes being (a human calculator) tight/sensible with money is a curse!