The day I shifted into retirement and the job income came to a close, I thought, for the first time, that it was time to sit down and budget every penny that went through my hands. I have always been rather good with money. Having a dad that was a banker, I learned early to respect, but not fear money. I was told repeatedly that money was simply going to be an energy that will flow through my life to my last days. But, somehow the idea of no further, formal paycheck got me counting every penny I saw. I went from budgeting to micro-budgeting. I got up every morning and went through the checkbooks just to make sure that I had not made an error the previous day.How could today be lived on even LESS money?
I was going to limit and restrict my spending down to public libraries and lunch meat. After all of these years, I had grown afraid of money. I was in it to SURVIVE and not to THRIVE. Only in the past few days have I relaxed enough to enjoy the money that I had worked hard to save – “be smart, and trust the flow” – – as I heard my parents say over and over.