“Like mother, like daughter” a popular adage to describe how a young girl resembles her mother. The phrase speaks not of traits defined by genetics, like how the girl shares the same blue eyes as her mother, but of characteristics molded by nurture, the influence of a parent on a child. When I see all my little boy’s toys strewn across the floor of our home, I wonder, “like mother, like son?” Will my child struggle with being an excessive consumer like his mother?
I stumbled upon Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopaholic when I was 17 years old and fell in love with the protagonist, Becky Bloomwood. The book follows Becky’s antics of shopping the sales around London and rationalizing her purchases by considering them necessities or investments. I laughed at her attempt to save money by cooking at home, by first buying all pots and pans, a fancy cook book, and exotic ingredients. I celebrated with her when she finds a beautiful silk scarf on sale and makes the purchase. While quirky and endearing, Becky is not the greatest role model; she lacks self control, is clearly delusional, and acts irresponsibly, but I saw past her faults because I identified with her. I understood the thrill of being at a mall and the rush of adrenaline at the sight of “sale”.
With simplifying our life as the overarching vision for the year, we hereby announce Project UrbanSimplify: a 12 month challenge to help remove clutter, whether that be abstract or material.
I started reading personal finance blogs while on maternity leave earlier this year; there wasn’t much to do while nursing a baby other than to read blogs on a handheld device. I devoured posts like a fat kid at a pie eating contest and would click on blogrolls to discover new material. I was fascinated with how people spend and managed their money, but the more I read personal finance blogs, the more I realized that I had a problem with them. Most of the ones I encountered fell into three categories: determined [to get out of debt] debtors, extreme savers, and savvy investors. I couldn’t relate.