Is it better to be loose or Tight?
Last Thursday, my boyfriend told me, in a serious and solemn tone: “Baby, I think you’re too tight. It hurts.”
(Note: this piece took me like 3 months to get back to, so it was actually like something he said ~3 months ago)
I was really confused.
Isn’t it good to be Tight?
Growing up, my family always taught me to be tight, to be restrictive with my spending. I recall being three years old, screaming and crying at the corner store in Xi’an, at the sight of the yummy, crispy, seaweed packs just Calling my name, and my grandma’s stern figure standing outside the store, waiting for me to get my shit together.
My mother was the same, eating out or spending money on drinks was reserved for special occasions, which only happened a few times a year.
Growing up in a predominantly white school district, I thought being tight was the normal experience of every Asian American, but in high school, I was surprised to see many of my fellow asians spending on 7 dollar bobas and Starbucks drinks every other day.
With time, I saw myself splurging as well. This was a foreign feeling to me. I mean, having the freedom to buy a drink whenever I have the craving? In this era, (mostly like, senior year of high school), I’m ashamed to say I probably spent upwards of $200 on Starbucks alone: I don’t even like the taste of most Starbucks drinks! And Starbucks is evil!
I can’t lie though, their peppermint mocha has me in a chokehold. Thankfully that only comes along once per year.
(Cadence please make me a better peppermint mocha :))
This habit continued all throughout Fall semester: $200 dollar climbing shoes, $75 on a 5k race I didn’t even go to, $75 on raves, $350 on climbing memberships, probably an embarrassingly high amount I don’t want to disclose on ChiCha SanChen, and so much more that’s probably slipping my mind.
Over Winter Break, however, my mother sat me down and Confronted me about my Credit Card Usage. She had, in typical accountant manner, made a detailed spreadsheet of all that I had spent on, and made a point out of how I sometimes spend more in a day than my brother would in an entire year when they were less well off, in a time before I was born.
I thought she was being incredibly unfair. She had told me money wasn’t an issue for me to worry about in college, and here she was, criticizing my spending.
However, coming face to face with my decisions, realizing I was buying things I didn’t technically “need” was particularly frustrating, spending twenty dollars on meals, when every one I ate at school was “free”, hit me like a truck. I felt that I was frivolously spending, though I justified it each time with, “I’m treating myself, this won’t happen often,” while never realizing how “often” I really did “treat myself.”
Saving up and being tight with money, when things like eating out aren’t as important to me as it is to other people, is something I still have to work on.
Next semester, since I’m living in my own apartment with my best friends (shoutout Cadence, Sarah, and Piggy!!), I’m 100% making a monthly discretionary budget and tracking my nonessential purchases.