Mrs Holland and I have been tackling an issue over the last year and have made substantial progress. The issue is an overarching one that can impact almost every area of our lives, money! To Mrs Holland’s credit, she picked up the book Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and began to address one of the sub-issues of money, consumer debt, or, in a term we are more familiar with, credit card debt! I will not go into all of that here, because I wanted to touch on a topic that relates to this. Resetting My Norms!
I am a regular blog reader and one in particular that is on my feed reader is Get Rich Slowly (click the link to find out what they are all about, many good tips on spending, saving investing and staying out of debt) and this morning there was a post called Dangerous Norms: When a Treat Becomes a Routine Matter and within it was a revelation that speaks volumes and yet is such a simple concept.
I like Starbucks and specifically a Venti 3 pump mocha at 180 degrees with a double cup. Now, they do not charge me for the double cup, they do, however, charge me well for all of the other stuff, around 4 bucks! At one time they were a treat, something that I would get maybe once or twice a month. Then when there was a new Starbucks that opened on the way to work I would have a “Friday treat”. Then I began to stop by and get one whenever the urge was there… well, you know where this is going. Something that was once a special treat once a month turned into a norm. I can probably give you hundreds of examples like this from my daily life for myself, Mrs Holland and the kids.
After reading this blog post, I thought of several pitfalls for the Hollands.
- One obvious is the money. One Starbucks a month, around $4… 5, 6, or 7 Starbucks a month… up to $28 a month. From $48 a year to $336 a year.
- Lose the luster. Having a treat once in a while keeps the excitement up. Having something on a routine looses the luster.
- Setting expectations. Once something becomes a norm, well, it is expected that it will happen on that regular basis and when it does not there is disappointment.
- Creating better norms. Dangerous Norms take away time, energy and other resources that could be given to Productive Norms.
This cannot only be dangerous for the pocket book, it can also be dangerous with time. For the kids, they like to watch shows that we DVRed during the week. There would be special times that we would set aside to watch shows, they become more often and before you know it the oldest is turning on the TV, finding the taped show and plopping down on the couch with sister who is excitedly going along with this endeavor. Or Mr Holland will set aside some computer time to check his feeds, facebook, email etc. and then it turns into wanting an I-Phone and wanting access to it all 24/7 (to Mr Holland’s defense, he does not own an I-Phone).
A quote from the post wrapped it up nicely:
Then, the little things (like eating out or getting a new book) will begin to feel special again — and a lot of fun. You won’t lose the joy of day-to-day life. Instead, you’ll find deep appreciation and happiness in the wonderful little splurges. Even better, you won’t have to worry about making ends meet.
So, as I leave the Dangerous Norms post and finish writing this, I ponder what norms I need to be resetting in my life. I also think about the spiritual things that need to become norms so that my soul is fresh with things that my Creator wants for my life! I look forward to enjoying the less frequent treats once again and finding satisfaction with the simple things that I have been blessed with!
Which norms will you be resetting?
ken
