On Our Enablers

Doesn’t everyone have a financial Dark Kermit?

Recently, two large checks made their way to my bank account. They were not unexpected, but something about the way I had been spending money last month meant that I had more money in my checking account than usual. Like I do every time I get paid, I moved 28 percent for taxes plus a little extra for savings into my savings account and stared at the number. It was a lot bigger than I thought — not bad, just surprising, totally fine. I checked the math. I made some coffee. I moved a little more into my savings. Content with the number, I got up and started my day.

There were so many things I was going to buy. A perfume. More socks. A plane ticket to New Orleans. A shopping cart full of shirts and things from Uniqlo that were all very cheap, so that’s fine. Various glycolic peels for my visage. Lipstick. A notebook. Just…stuff. Nothing I needed. Just something to burn off the strange nervous energy I woke up with that I couldn’t quite shake.

“I just got paid. I paid my bills. I bought kitty litter. I want to buy something very big and expensive,” I typed to my sister. “Help.”

“DO IT. BUY IT,” she typed back. “I AM YOUR DARK KERMIT.”

My sister exists as a friendly enabler; I’m her voice of reason. She tells me to buy things when I say I want them, operating out of the “TREAT YOURSELF ITS FINE YOU’RE DOING GREAT” school of thought. I am the Reason Kermit to her dark frog. She presents me with a proposed purchase and I counter with the reason why, maybe, just maybe, she should hold off. The dynamic works for us, and really, the conversations we have about money are just ways to fill the time. Regardless of her answer or mine, we’re going to do what we want.

Who is your voice of reason? Who do you talk to when you need a push in either direction?

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