Frugal relationships: Why money can't buy love
Spending money to impress a partner or potential partner rarely works over the long term, Hamm writes.
Spending money to impress a partner or potential partner rarely works over the long term, Hamm writes.
After much recent talk about insurance, we鈥檙e going to shift gears a little bit in our 鈥�365鈥� series and talk about relationships.
We all need human relationships in our lives, whether they鈥檙e close friendships, romantic relationships, or professional associations. Relationships are a big part of the spice of life.
Unfortunately, relationships can also be expensive, particularly romantic ones. So, for the next several entries, we鈥檙e going to focus on ways to minimize the costs of starting and maintaining a healthy relationship.
It鈥檚 natural that, when you鈥檙e just getting to know someone, you want to impress them. You want that person to think highly of you and want to spend more time with you.
One convenient way to do that is to spend money, either through buying things for the person you鈥檙e interested in or spending excessively on yourself to appear affluent and desirable.
The catch is that聽spending to impress others rarely works over the long term.
If you do win over the person, they鈥檙e going to eventually find that your spending is not sustainable. You鈥檙e not quite the affluent person this individual thought you were. In some cases, that can lead to mistrust and a breakdown of the relationship.
On the other hand, if you don鈥檛 win over the person, the money simply went to waste.
The best approach is to聽win people over with the person you are.聽Don鈥檛 hide the real you behind a wall of money. Instead, leave it out there.
Allow that person to click with聽you, not the things you spend money on or the appearance you put up.
If you鈥檙e even thinking of spending a dime solely to impress someone else, ask yourself what happens if you do win them over. Are you going to keep overspending? Or are you going to show yourself to be a different person than you originally showed them?
Be yourself. Don鈥檛 waste a dime impressing others. It rarely helps in the long run.
This post is part of a yearlong series called 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap (Revisited),鈥� in which I鈥檓 revisiting the entries from my book 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap,鈥� which is available聽at Amazon聽and at bookstores everywhere.聽