Perfectionism

Sceptic001

quantic wrote: »

We plan to use some to bring the mortgage down in august when our first deal is up and the rest is for when my wife is on maternity leave as she only gets statutory.

Compared to the cost of raising a child, £790 will seem like a drop in the ocean.

The most expensive years are between the ages of one and four, when parents spend an average of £63,224 on their offspring.

Maybe hold off on using your savings to reduce the mortgage?

seacaitch

Perfectionists are more susceptible to longer term depression because their perfectionism causes them to excessively ruminate and dwell on matters.

So while you undoubtedly want the folks who design your aircraft's safety systems to be perfectionists you don't necessarily want that character trait in yourself.

As such, the OP would be better served by focusing less on the negative aspect of their situation: "Oh dear, I've depleted my savings";
and more on the positive side: "Excellent, my earlier decision to save money for unexpected costs has paid off - just as I planned".

Then, forget about it and move on.

lippy1923

Can you not pay the bill with a 0% credit card, so you don't have to take out of savings? You can then pay it back little chunks at a time as and when you like.

coyrls

[FONT=&quot]I would have thought that a perfectionist would want to get things right, so a perfectionist would want to manage their savings in the right way. Being “tortured” by having to take money out of your savings to pay an unexpected bill does not sound like managing your savings in the right way. What is being described sounds more like obsessional behaviour than perfectionism. [/FONT]

sorcerer

It's funny I used to be the same way, but as you get older you "sometimes" get wiser. And I learnt to consider this just part of the bills you have to pay. Perhaps a better way is to put aside a small pot of money for emergencies, and try not to think of them as savings. So maybe took £2000 put it aside, and the rest is your savings.

jimjames

quantic wrote: »

Do any of the rest of you guys suffer from perfectionism when it comes to savings? Would love to know your experiences and thoughts.

I hate the thought of savings going down too but after 2 boiler replacements as well as major car repairs last year they took a pounding. I would question if it's perfectionism if you have all your money in cash savings and not any investments.

talexuser

Pull yourself together. You had the money to cope easily, in time it can get back to where it was. How bad would it be if you didn't have the money to get you out of a jam such as this? That is what the money was for, unforeseen life happenings where you can carry on as normal rather than having a disaster of smaller or larger scale on your hands.

EdGasket

I would be more worried about inflation reducing the real value of that £53K; assuming it's in a cash account that is?

polagon

I'm more curious as I can see some others are about how you are 'saving' your money currently? What type of account is your money saved in? How much interest are you currently making from it?

Pincher

I find a lot of this accumulate all their life, and then just want to pass it onto the next generation sickness. If I can send my money on my death to my younger self to enjoy, via the temporal division of Western Union, then that is what I call Perfection.

Paying 40% inheritance tax, after a life time of not enjoying my money, is the exact opposite of Perfection.