When It's More Than Just A Dress
How buying a dress made me re-evaluate my relationship with money + how I'm setting the vibe for the week ahead.
I’m on a neverending mission to be smarter with my money. I had a very lower middle-class upbringing so I can’t remember a time when money and the lack of it weren’t somewhere on my mind. I’ve seen firsthand what poor financial decision-making and lack of financial literacy get you and refuse to live my life precariously close to complete financial ruin.
I’ve had to teach myself about how money works and how to be a good steward of it so I’m never stuck with more money than month and no options. I work hard for my money trying to provide value and meet expectations, but I don’t want to have to keep running on this hampster wheel until the day I die. I’ve watched too many family members do that exact thing.
The fear of not having a financial safety net has resulted in my prioritizing financial fitness above everything else. Using money to buy anything but the bare necessities feels like I’m robbing myself of security on some level. As a result, I built a practical wardrobe of nothing but boring basics that I could pack into a single suitcase. Literally. I had six of the same black short-sleeved t-shirts, 2 pairs of jeans, and a couple of blazers that I wore on rotation. I was spending next to nothing on clothes as I was building a solid financial foundation.
While I don’t regret that time entirely, it’s hard to now spend money on something frivolous. I spent years beating my fashion-loving inner child into submission, shaming myself for liking pretty (and often pricey) things for the sake of financial security. As a result, my wardrobe is still largely boring right now, but I’m giving myself permission to give the younger me a big hug and learn how to love fashion and care about my personal style again.
I haven’t bought a single new clothing item since October. Yes, five months ago. Apparently, I’m very good at no-buy periods. The only thing I’ve bought solely for myself since October was new underwear. I don’t play about my hygiene and underwear is on my list as an essential. What’s not essential is a new dress.
I’ve had my eye on a gorgeous white dress for months. This dress meets every single rule I follow to ensure I’m not spending money with devil-may-care abandon. The tab for it stayed open in the Safari app on my phone, but I couldn’t bring myself to put it in the cart and buy it. It kept popping into my head with countless ways I could style it, but I still couldn’t bring myself to make it mine. I had excuse after excuse to wield against my desire to see myself spinning in my living room in a dress that has made my heart skip a beat more than once. “It’s see-through in potentially scandalous spots. You don’t know if the fabric is heavy or light. You work from home so how often will you wear this? It has delicate care instructions, do you really want something else you have to fuss over?” All of those kept me from honoring the part of me that wanted something nice, even when I had good rebuttals to all of my objections.
Then one night the dress popped into my head again so I showed it to Chanston snd he said, “Oooo! That’s niiiice! I'd love to see you in that.” I almost went into cardiac arrest. Him not liking it or not saying I should get it were my final excuses not to get the dress and my husband just shot them down without knowing it. After I shook off my initial shock I asked him if he was serious. He looked at me with an expression that lovingly said “duh” and said something like, “Just get it. We have more than enough for it.”
With all my excuses obliterated, I whipped out my credit card and bought it. Then I immediately started to panic. Suddenly it was more than just a dress. It was an additional contribution to a retirement account, a little bit more into savings, an extra payment on my student loan, or anything else I could find more financially justifiable than buying a dress.
I was starting to spiral and mentally beat myself up for doing something that felt careless. Like I was jeopardizing my financial security by using money to buy something nice that benefits only me. This dress is not an appreciating asset therefore it was bad to spend money on.
After talking through my crisis with my very patient husband and calming myself down I realized that I needed to reevaluate my relationship with money. If something as trivial as purchasing a dress that I KNEW I had more than enough money for was going to give me anxiety something needed to change.
We’ve had line items in our budget for discretionary spending for years but largely didn’t use them—first to pay off consumer debt, then to save for a house down payment. Since buying our house and deciding to increase our savings account balances we kept looking at that line item as a nice to have, not something we intentionally planned for. That made it feel like buying a dress was a one-way ticket to financial ruin.
Now when I see the place in our budget marked for my discretionary spending (he has one too) I will look at it the same way I look at the lines for savings and investments—as an investment in my future self.
So in a way, this purchase was more than just a dress. It was permission to make my day-to-day life a little more fun again. I might be mostly working from our home office where no one sees me from the waist down for now, but one day if I’m finally allowed to live life how I want to that won’t be the case. And when that day comes, I’ll already have the clothes to fit the occasion.
THE SUNDAY RESET
How I’m setting the vibe for the coming week.
Sunday is when sheets and towels get washed. The Mister™ suggested we buy this fabric rinse to eliminate the mildew-y scent in our towels and let me tell you…they smell so clean and are softer and fluffier. We use this rinse for every single load now.
It’ve fallen off of my everything shower schedule and it shows. I’ll be getting one of those in today.
See you Thursday!
♡, DeAndrea
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