Ten Money Questions for Colleen Wainwright

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In this week’s Ten Money Questions we speak with Colleen Wainwright. Colleen is the Communicatrix and she helps clients translate words and pictures so the rest of the world will “get” it. Her blog filters random thoughts and her off-kilter consciousness and every so often she tosses in a post about consumption and the emotions of spending. I’m always blown away at these glimpses into her financial soul. Enjoy!

1. I know from reading your blog that you have trimmed down your possessions to the point where everything has a place. Is excess in America just a lingering by-product of the 1980’s or is it inevitable that humanity will over-consume until we usher in the apocalypse?
Oh, I think our love of glorious excess well pre-dates the ’80s, don’t you? As a nation, we’ve always benefited/suffered from a history-free existence, an abundance of natural resources and a location that's an ocean away from handy attack by a significant force.

Of course, the people who settled the land (or, um, took it from the people who were already here) were frugal and thoughtful out of necessity: it’s 1692, you’re out of soap, you can’t just run to the Wal-Mart in the Bronco and pick up a flat of Safeguard. And during the Great Depression or war rationing, where pretty much everyone was going through the same thing, people hunkered down and got with the program.

Doomsayers (or realists, depending on your viewpoint) like James Kunstler date the real decline of civilization from the end of WWII, when suburban life as American ideal really took root: a tiny country manse with a garage full of crap for every man, woman and 1.2 children. By the way, I think every citizen should read Kunstler and watch “The Corporation.” And buy them from their local retailers, where possible. Or hell, bust out the library card. Be the dream.

As for predicting the apocalypse, we as a country have so much invested in the cycle of consumption, it’s hard to see where it ends. Well, that’s not true. I’m pretty sure it ends with us hitting the wall hard, if we don’t wake the f**k up, probably sooner than we think.

2. What is your most significant memory about money?
Ha! I can’t think of an *insignificant* one, which is doubtless why I have such a gothically godawful, future-self-as-bag-lady relationship with money.

Seriously, when I was around 12, my mom and I got into a heated argument over whether or not “Sleeping Beauty” had been made as a Disney animated movie. I knew it had, because while I’d never actually seen it (this was pre-home video, when Disney movies were only brought back into theatrical release every seven years), I’d once owned a Viewmaster reel of it.

But Mom was *sure* it hadn’t, and, as the putative adult in this relationship, was hell-bent on teaching me some Valuable Lesson. When I wouldn’t back down, she bet me fifty bucks I was wrong, which in 1973 dollars was enough for a sizable down payment on a house.

I believe the NY Public Library’s reference desk, a.k.a. The Resource for Winning Disputes before the interwebs, finally won me the bet. To her credit (I think), Mom paid. But I’m still not sure if she proved anything, outside of “don't make bets with your children you aren’t 100% sure you can win or you will look like an ass and mess with their heads.”

3. What is your worst habit around finances?
Definitely keeping it vague. Which is to say, I have no idea how much money I have, and I’m not just talking about my checkbook, which I’ve not balanced since 1997.

I’m a bizarre mix of “responsible” and “idiot”: I never bounce checks, but I’m forever getting dinged with that cursed overdraft fee (an example of what I’ve named “a**hole tax”) because I forget to transfer the money *which I have* from savings to checking. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

If anyone has any brilliant ideas about how to stop this, please let me know.

4. You once wrote, “Taken too far, or course, thrift veers into tightwaddery, its dingy, B.O.-stained cousin.” How do you balance frugal living without skimping too much on life’s indulgences?
Well, I start with really examining what an indulgence is (I mean the luxurious variety, not the papal one).

I was fortunate enough to learn early on that “stuff” was not the road to happiness. In my 20s, I had a moderately successful career in advertising, with corresponding compensation.