I have a confession to make. I believe I have committed financial infidelity. The horror. In this case it’s actually a crime against myself. I try to walk that fine line between saving enough to retire one day (like when I’m 89 and can no longer work the busy conference circuit) but not feeling like I’m being monetarily punished AND having a little bit of fun spoiling those I love while rewarding myself with personal travel and shiny objects that capture and delight my girlish sense of happiness.
To be honest, I have no idea if I’m a tremendous success or failing miserably. And the reason I can’t tell is that I cannot accurately project the arc of my life. Am I going to live to be 99 and need years and years of tennis lessons to improve my once pretty fierce game or fade away quietly at 88 in the middle of the night? Of course nobody knows, but I am counting on hiring a great tennis pro who finally teaches me the elusive one-handed backhand while managing to help me avoid the affliction of dreaded tennis elbow. I don’t just want to survive; I of course want to thrive, especially on center court.
But speaking of survival and staying on the topic of financial infidelity, I must further confess that I made an outrageous Williams Sonoma purchase just the other day of almost $13.00. (Outrageous because of the item, not because of the price!) I bought a Butter Blade. Have you ever seen a tool like this? It’s a funny looking stainless-steel knife with a substantial white nonslip silicone handle that boasts a serrated edge with perforations right along the blade. This enables the handler to effortlessly glide the knife against a cold brick of good salted French butter (or whatever kind you enjoy, but hell that is some tasty stuff) to produce stringy, thin spaghetti like wiggles of buttery goodness. “The angled blade also deftly slices bread and can be used for jam, cream cheese and condiments,” according to the WS description, which is nice, but let’s be clear– this is a buttery wizard wand first. I wanna know who invented this genius gadget cause I just had to buy it. And next to my favorite kitchen item ever, my $8.50 tomato knife I bought in Paris that I’ve used every single day since I’ve been back, I’m just head over heels for the dang butter swiper. So I guess this qualifies as a shiny object that appeals to my girlish sense of happiness. Thank goodness it wasn’t more expensive!
On the positive side of saving, I will go on to say that I’ve already taken the bold step of maxing out my 401k plan for the year—a difficult task for me this early in 2023 I assure you. And the reason that I did it, although it was painful to whisk away such a large chunk of income that I actually need to live on, is that this gives my 401k the benefit of the whole year to (hopefully) grow and make up for the last few years of crazy market instability. The added benefit is of course that I qualified for the corporate match. Who doesn’t love that? We all could use some extra bucks to put toward our golden years. Here’s hoping there’s enough to someday retire, right? Those tennis lessons sound expensive.
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