Don't Be a Scrooge This Christmas

So, it is the Christmas holidays, and you are engaged in a job search.  What does that mean at your house?  Bah, humbug? or God Bless Us One and All?

I came across a very helpful article in this light, not just limited to Christmas mind you, at the the website Bankrate.com.  Now, keep in mind these guys are pretty heavily tied to the financial services industry, so expect their website to bend a little in favor of financial institutions in its editorial opinion.

This particular article builds on a bedrock of common sense.  The article admonishes the saver ( in our case Job Seeker) not to get hung up on the practice of saving money just for the sake of saving.  Savings should have a purpose, an objective.  

When we first married, my wonderful wife brought to our marriage the self control to save for major purchases.  I admit I am not good at saving. I'm more of the spendthrift if you must know.  The only problem was that once we had saved our purchase price, she still was reluctant to spend those savings.  She almost drove herself nuts trying to figure out how to pay for each item out of current cash flow.  Often it meant we continued to go without whatever item we had been saving for.

We also can not afford to loose sight of the fact that "life goes on".  A truism for a job seeker if I ever head one.   As a job seeker, don't become so frugal that your frugality begins to impact others.   Not to mention, you need an occasional "splurge".  Even if your splurge is just a deli sandwich or a Starbuck's Caramel Macchiato once a week, for your own good mental health JUST DO IT.  Doctors and nutritionists have advised me that the best strategy for staying with a strict weight loss regimen in the long term, is to plan in small indulgences along the way (mine were French Fry Saturdays.)

This Banknote.com article offers up a bit of zen like advice.  The author (Clark Palmer) quotes Liz Weston, an LA Personal Finances columnist as saying

"You don't want to be so thrifty that you miss living life today,"  That's pretty profound advice if you pause to think about it.  This philosophy is referred to as "living in the moment" and often attributed to Buddhism.   However, almost every major religion has it's equivalent of this thought.  Does anyone recognize the statement "...do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. "? 

Even if/when you are in a job search, life still happens around you and to you.  It is vitally important that you be aware of it and engaged in it. 

While we plan for tomorrow, we must live today.  I guess I developed my own expression of this philosophy when I traveled the country for a living.  When asked how I could stand to be on the road so much I replied,  "The getting there is half the fun."  If we don't enjoy the "getting there" (life's journey) we will miss out on half or more of the enjoyment available to us in life.  The same is true of our job search.

Yes, we want to and must have our eye on that objective of full-time paying employment.  But if the price of that objective is that we strangle our own life and our life relationships now - who will be there to enjoy that new job with us when we reach it?  While we may limit our activities in the "now" we still need to be engaged.  To fail to do so, is a recipe for long term failure.

Read more: Are you taking frugality too far? http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/are-you-taking-frugality-too-far.aspx#ixzz185sIkRfm