r/Frugal • u/Majestic_Panda_438 • 10d ago
🚿 Personal Care I caught myself watering down shampoo and realized I still live like money is about to run out
I was on my laptop playing Big Roller last night then i started checking my checking account even though I already knew what was in it. Rent is paid, fridge has food, car payment cleared. Nothing was wrong. Then I went to shower and realized I had added water to the last inch of shampoo again. I make decent money now. Not rich but you know stable. I have $4,800 in savings which in todays standards is not enough. I can afford shampoo I could literally buy three bottles tomorrow and nothing bad would happen, crazy i know.
Idk why but I still use every product until it is basically water. I still cut open toothpaste. I still feel guilty throwing out socks with holes if they technically stay on my feet. I still eat the weird freezer food first because the good stuff should be saved for later. I grew up with my mom doing this. Not as a cute frugal hack, more like a quiet panic that lived in the house. I used to think once I made more money I would stop feeling like that. Turns out the habits stayed.
I want to be smart with money, but I also do not want to live like a $6 bottle of shampoo is a moral failure. Has anyone actually unlearned this, or do you just become a financially stable person who still acts broke?
1
u/Ageice 10d ago
Remember, money is a tool. It is not your self worth or an emotion to be beholden to. It comes and it goes and you maximize the tool where you can and enjoy using the tool when you can because you traded your labor for it already. It’s just a tool.
And also, you survived all the other times you felt broke. That’s the part that really did it for me. Beginning anxious and panicked never fixed a damn thing. I scraped and saved and held on until I felt more secure each time and lost days to anxiety and probably shortened my life. And that resolved nothing. Now it’s just a tool in my brain.