I apologise if this comes off inappropriate to post in a sub titled frugal.
My parents have suffered extreme hardship throughout their lives through no fault of their own. They struggled terribly financially, but through budgeting and counting the pennies they managed to always make it work for us as a family. Later in life through sacrifices and dedication at work, they have managed to become somewhat quite wealthy. They have been extremely generous with their money when it comes to their children, and have kindly bought us all a house of our choice paid for in cash.
This sounds amazing I know, and it now allows me to save all of my income and enjoy things in life which is what they want, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I've seen how hard my parents had to work to earn this money, and I find myself feeling guilty if I treat myself in any way. I am living the life they once did by counting the pennies with my groceries, I haven't bought any new clothes in over a year and I'm not buying things I like, and whilst my savings are building up, it's making me quite unhappy.
I think one of my issues is that I hope to be able to repay the favour to my own children with buying their houses in cash (amongst other things), but how will I do this if I don't save all my money? Another issue is that I worry if I start buying things or going on holidays, they make think I'm frittering all my money away. I also think I've just adopted their spending style, but at the same time I do think if I had never had a penny from my parents, I wouldn't feel such guilt. I know this is a first world problem, but I see my parents cash gift as a blessing and a curse. Any thoughts on how to overcome this?
February 02, 2019 at 12:38PM
