"I only eat out. I can't make a meal for less than what I pay at a restaurant."
This person is a single mother of two, works all hours and wants to give her children a lot more than love - she wants to buy them things to show how much she loves them. She buys herself things too, because she's worth it. Or as she put it, "because I'm a girl".
This last comment was in response to her being asked who's the boss - her or her money.
She insisted that she is the boss. That she only deals with a set amount of cash every month - that she is in total control.
Then: "Do you stick to your budget?"
"Well, when I go to the mall, if I see something I like, I use my credit card. After all, I'm a girl," she says. Smile, shrug shoulders in a "you know what I mean" hapless way.
Yes I know what she meant. And no, it's got nothing to do with being a girl.
This happened during a financial empowerment workshop I was running. Unfortunately, this person is not unique in her conflicting approaches and justifications.
She budgets. Has fixed cash to use for any one month. But whips her card out when something takes her fancy.
Money is tight. She is concerned about her and her children's well-being and future. But every meal is cooked by a restaurant.
How does this tally? It doesn't.
It culminates in this - she wants to spend more time with her children, but has to spend many an hour away from them earning - so that she can afford what, exactly?
So she can afford the lifestyle she has chosen for herself and her family.
She is not alone in this struggle of being blind to the obvious.
Being a "girl" doesn't seem to help either. But this person's comments have nothing to do with gender and everything to do with social conditioning.
Unfortunately, it appears that future women could have "because I'm a girl" embedded in their behavioural psyche too if my visit to a leading private school in the United Kingdom is anything to go by.
I was taken to see the girls' dormitory (this was a boarding school) and was greeted by a sea of lilac. It was everywhere. The walls, the bed covers, pillow cases - lilac was definitely someone's favourite colour. And there, hanging in pride of place in the centre was a giant poster. The (lilac) words stood out in bold and stated very emphatically:
STAY CALM and GO SHOPPING.
I wonder how many impressionable pre-teen students there are going to grow into shoulder-shrugging, retail-going "girls" who cannot get a handle on their financial life?
Financial basics are the same, regardless of gender.
And, dare I say it, financial planning is simple. But it's very, very difficult. Simple is not easy.
The key to a financially stable, peaceful life is: spend less, save more. And most certainly, live within (beneath is even better) your means.
But to do it means soul-searching, knowing yourself, defining your values and deciding on priorities. That's the difficult part.
It involves answering a very important question: Why? Why do you want to spend on X? What's the trade-off? And there's always a trade-off.
It's when you drill down and have to justify spend that things get messy.
If the struggling mother of two's priority is having more time with her children, then how about finding great online recipes, planning meals for a week and using the budgeted minimum of Dh150 every evening on restaurant food to set up her kitchen, then cook with her children? What would she get in return? Basic things such as meals and memories. And money left over too, I'm sure.
Is she going to struggle? Yes - being honest with herself about her pattern of behaviour and what it does to her family's life, then changing it will be a mammoth task.
Looking at what she means by budget is another issue - setting money aside for specific things isn't what I'm talking about. Looking at every thing that's being bought or paid for, deciding whether it is what's best for her life and walking away from impulse buys is what she needs to do.
We can all see how this is change for the better. But when it comes to ourselves, it can be a battle.
Self-reflection and deliberate decisions are the way to get to the bottom of a lot of things. It's easier to busy ourselves out of doing it.
So I'm inviting you to spend this next week asking why. Why do you need to spend on the things you spend on?
What would happen if you didn't?
Nima Abu Wardeh is the founder of the personal finance website cashy.me. You can reach her at nima@cashy.me and find her on Twitter at @nimaabuwardeh
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