Spending Money

My job is and always has been seasonal. In the last two months, I have made close to a quarter of my yearly income (and have the stress marks to prove it). August through October I make about half the total. Long ago I knew I had to find a way to even out the bumps and dips, so I put the family on a diet - a money diet. Indiscriminate spending (and shopping-as-drug-of-choice) during flush times was killing our finances during lean times. We learned - we had to learn - to stay on a loosely structured but necessary budget. And at the heart of this diet was our allowances.

Once the kids grew up (more or less) and moved out (more or less), the Big Lug and I stayed on our allowances (more or less). He buys his collections and books, eats out for himself once in awhile. I buy my collections and books, eat out a bit too often. We have two exceptions: one, twice a month we go on "dates" in which we not only go out together and play kissy face, but we are allowed to buy each other things without subtracting from our own accounts; and two, we don't count funds spent on each of our remaining vices (tobacco for him, Starbucks coffee for me). Basically, we treat ourselves like six-year olds, but they system works, and works well.

Until recently.

You've heard it a million times - "You have to spend money to make money." I've always thought this aphorism was total crap. They (whoever "they" are) meant that we have to purchase stocks and bonds and gold, plant it somewhere, then wait until it grows big, fat, juicy profits.

But it's not spending if you put it into sources that have the potential to raise your bottom line - it's just shifting from one account to another, really. If you don't sprout dividends then it still isn't spending; it's just losing. By my reckoning, the only time you really are spending money is if what you purchase has no potential to increase your assets.

So money I spend on this quest shouldn't have to come out of my allowance, right?

I don't mean the shifts - in the past two months, I've paid off the car, opened a shiny new IRA, and increased our giving to church and charity (more on that another day). These didn't come out of my personal funds. And I don't mean the staples - the shower rod and the tile and the wood to make cabinet doors are all about sweat equity, and will not come out of my account as long as the Big Lug thinks we're just sprucing up.

I mean, what about the treasures?

The hunting was pretty good last weekend. I found a biscuit jar for $30. that will sell for $50-100 at a collector's auction (Labor Day). I bought a picture for my husband's man cave ($8. - yes, it's the dogs playing poker, in triptych), an electric miter saw ($10. - for the cabinet doors), a small stool ($3. - for the grandkids), a stroller ($5. - for the walks I need to take when I watch my grandkids), and some (marked) bangle bracelets and a Wade figurine I need to research ($.75 - yes, 75 cents total for all). Mostly necessities. Until I bought the rocks.

You heard me. I bought rocks. In fact, my entire allowance went to rocks. Citrine and tourmaline and calcite and fluorite and ruby and sapphire and topaz and zircon and tiger's eye and chrysoberyl and garnet and God knows what else (pictures when I can get the Big Lug to stop teleworking!). I'm also sending a check to my local rock-hound club, even though I work most of the days they do their "field trips." I need to learn.

But this is investing, right? I mean, it's not shuttling cash to the elves, but this is knowledge - knowledge I need in order to recognize it when I see it, right? So I don't have to count it, right?

Why am I doing, asking you? I already know the answer. I love the man, and I will not taint his gift.

It's only money, after all.

And well spent, at that.