In defense of little treats

In the last Tightwad Gazette post, I covered an article called “Wealth, Poverty, and Frugality”.

As part of the article, Amy shared a letter from someone who said that she occasionally buys some junk food because,

“I found it I try to be too thrifty or too cheap, my kids have a ‘poor’ mentality…in other words, thinking of themselves as being poor instead of thrifty. So I do make allowances once in a while for ‘comfort food.'”

Amy’s response was:

“Grr! In her view, she has to give her kids the occasional Twinkie, like the other kids have, instead of an inexpensive alternative, or they’ll have low self-esteem.”

I was a little surprised to read Amy’s black and white take on this, and I’m not sure I agree with her. I don’t know…maybe she’s focusing more on the mentality part of things, but I just didn’t think an occasional junk food purchase was a behavior that needed calling out.

For a lot of people, having a little space in the budget for a treat or indulgence actually helps them stick with their budget better.

For instance, even though I’m naturally very comfortable being frugal, I would start to have a bad attitude if I felt like I had to stick 100% of the time to a perfectly frugal lifestyle.

It reminds me of this truism: “What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.”

If you send your kid to school with Twinkies and other individually packaged junk foods every day, that’s one thing.

If you buy a Twinkie here and there, that’s quite another.

 

If you get a coffee out once a month, that’s one thing.

If you buy lattes every day, that’s another.

If you buy a (as in one) summer dress, no big deal.

If you buy a new dress every week, ok, that might be a little much.

I’m not an all-or-nothing girl

As I’ve talked about before in relation to nutrition, I really, really dislike food rules.

If I give myself “permission” to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, I will generally make healthy choices that fuel my body well, with little treats thrown in. This makes me feel good mentally and physically.

But if I tried to do something strict like a Whole 30, I would want nothing more than to eat a dozen donuts.

 

It’s the same way with money. I generally make healthy financial choices, but I also will throw in a little frivolous, not-absolutely-necessary spending here and there. This feels good to me.

But if I had a strict rule against any financial indulgences or any spending beyond what is necessary, I would feel a greater desire to spend money frivolously!

I like feeling that my good decisions are a free choice, rather than feeling enslaved to some set of rules. And in my case, the freedom is not a slippery slope to overindulgence.

Not everyone is like this, though…

As Gretchen Rubin has famously pointed out with her abstainer vs. moderator framework, some people make way better choices when they have strict rules to follow.

For them, one coffee out leads to 30 coffees out.

One Twinkie leads to a Twinkie-a-day habit.

But if they just decide, “I’m not doing that at all anymore.”, they are able to stick with it.

So for a person like that, I can totally see how a “no junk food buying” rule might actually be helpful.

One way isn’t better

I’m not saying Amy should choose to run her life like the letter-writer did. I just think that there’s room for acknowledging that different strokes work for different folks.

As someone who falls into the moderator camp, not the abstainer camp, it boggles my mind to think that abstaining would actually be easier for some people.

But I trust that this is actually, factually true, and I think if you want to be successful at frugal living, you have to figure out what works best for you, and then roll with it.

Which is why I’m never gonna give up my occasional little treats, either budgetary or dietary. 😉 

What’s your view on little treats? Are they helpful or harmful for you?