My sense of entitlement

There's an excellent post by Owlhaven on her blog about the 30 days of nothing challenge and our sense of entitlement. We've discovered things are tighter with our finances than we realized and this challenge really appeals to me. Could we really make it through a whole month buying nothing? Well, we'd have to buy fruits and vegetables, and there would most certainly be a couple of staple items like flour and rice... but what about the rest?

I completely understood where she was coming from about the sense of entitlement. Heck, I bought a package of name brand graham cracker cookies from a store with high prices on that particular item just because I felt I deserved it. And I made a special late-night trip to the store as well to get it. It had been a hard week.

Do I really deserve it? No. I could give myself a much better treat with a cup of red raspberry tea or a walk in the cool fall air.

But that sense of entitlement ends up clouding my thinking and before I know it, I'm making a special trip to the store just so that I can have something that I'm going to regret eating before I've finished the package. I'm wasting time, money, and energy, not to mention valuable time with my husband before we go to sleep, all so I can get something I "deserve".

And what's really funny is that all the things I use to justify it, are things that really aren't that much at all. Other people go through much worse than I've currently been going through. What makes me think my trials make me special?

So, this month, I'm only getting what our family really and truly needs. I don't think I'm up to the absolute nothing the challenge requires, but to only get what we absolutely need... I think I can do that.