Spending Habits

Last week I received my tax return in the mail, and I swear I felt like I had just won the New York Mega Million Jackpot.

My first reaction was shopping spree! New shoes! New swimsuit! Where I can take a trip? Basically, how can I spend this nice little check from Uncle Sam.

And then I came down from the clouds and remembered I don't have an income, so this extra boost to my bank account cannot be spent frivolously. It's basically a month of survival money. Well that's no fun.

I wonder how many other people felt the same way as me this year. Things are different now. Not as fun.

During the 2007 tax return season when the economy was booming, most people were not too concerned with saving. The market was high and the spending was higher. Living beyond ones means was a way of life - just put it on the credit card. Especially in New York, on a famous street named Wall.

I've dated my share of finance guys and have friends in the industry to know that they were treated like royalty before the recession hit. Private jets, $1,500 dinner tabs at Daniel and lavish hotel rooms were standard. It was pretty ridiculous the way these people threw away money. They had no worry about saving for harder times.

The excess of spending started at the top of the kingdom and trickled all the way down to the commoner - even the poor man was driving a car and living in a house he couldn't afford.

And now look where we are. The Bear Stearns partner had to sell his $4 million penthouse on Park Ave and the blue collar worker is now living in a tent in Sacramento. We got way too ahead of ourselves and we didn't think about any repercussions.

I've never been too good at saving, even though my Dad has drilled it into my brain. Instead of putting aside some money, I had to have a new pair of jeans. Because having 20 pairs just wasn't enough.

When this recession is all over and the job market recovers, will people go back to their unnecessary spending habits or will they be more cautious having survived the crash of 2008?

A couple months ago, my Mom and I were eating at an authentic German restaurant and an older German woman was helping clear our table. We had not finished our meals and the woman scolded us for not eating everything, because we had paid for it. She made us take home our leftovers and finish our beers - not to be wasteful, she said. Clearly, she is a product of WWII when having a meal on the table was a blessing.

At the time I laughed at the old German woman, but I later thought that we could all learn something from her - and I'm not talking about finishing our beers.

We've witnessed things go from bad to worse in our economy, and I hope that it doesn't sink to catastrophic for all of our sakes. We've seen enough that we know things can drastically change and our lifestyles are directly affected.

I'm trying to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel, but once we get there I hope that we can remember what life was like in the dark and think twice before swiping our credit cards.