Spendaholic.

For some, perhaps questionable reason, the only time I seem able to save a dollar is when I don’t have one. In times of financial strain I will, every once in a while, think to myself; ‘wow, I could be saving a lot now’. Then, true to my nature, I get two dollars to rub together and they are out of the palm as soon as they came.
For a 21 year old male with only a smoking and mild drinking habit (and none of the get-broke-quick ghastly vices that send people to the poorhouse in the blink of an eye) I burn through money with a frightening pace.
I couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of my excessive spending, but I do have a number of theories.
One of which is a deep seated mental issue, perhaps a dire need to distract myself from the horrors of living with expensive shiny things. As one with a nervous disposition and a personality resume clogged with worried hang-ups, it is only natural that I should want to fill the void. Thus far, the presence of ‘stuff’ has soothed many of this worry-warts mind burns, at least in the short-term.
It also seems to be associated with a need to be completely fulfilled at all times; free from yearning for even a single thing within the realms of possibility, so that most times of day I have each and every thing I am after. If I want something I don’t have, I am hardly realistic about it. I preoccupy my thoughts and bargain with myself, and indeed my bankroll, to figure out a possible way I could attain said item.
Another factor is my childishness. I am unable, on most days, to see things reasonably. I throw an emotional tantrum within myself until I get that which I desire. Much like a toddler bartering with his mother for a frozen treat, though I am both parent and child. The parent is the small grown up fragment of myself, the responsible one, the one that always loses the battle with the persistent and needy child.
The final major contributor to my economic recklessness is my prolonged exposure to life as a bachelor. It was, for a long while, my standpoint that if something couldn’t be bought at a smoke-shop, service station or convenience store it wasn’t worth having.
Couple with this my, until recently, student status and you have the makings of one who won’t go within one hundred meters of a supermarket or green grocer.
God forbid I give up on my literary ambitions and become gainfully employed, as there is nothing a spendaholic enjoys more than a regular stream of income. In some twisted way it’s better to squander a stockpile than a series of instalments; as I suppose the idea is that instalments coincide with the regular things that need paying.
After many a spending binge I have often wondered where the money went. I have appropriate guilt about it, but not so much guilt it will stop me doing it again. It is certainly a vicious cycle, by which I get money, spend it immediately and wait for more. It is not conducive to assets or responsibilities, and that is regrettable.
Still it is enjoyable enough, it is not until the money is gone that I really fret about it, and even then it is a momentary thing. It could be worse, I could be gambling. At least this way I have a bedroom floor of empty booze bottles and cig packets to show for it. Though I suppose a floor cluttered with dead horse track tickets is no more pathetic.
And, as a good friend once enlightened to me of his own voracious attitude toward money, ‘that is what it’s for’.