Make do, boo.
Or how I'm trying to get better at money.
I’ve never “been good” at money. I like working and have worked since before it was even legal to do so ( e.g. I spent most of my summer manually developing x-rays in a dark room at my dad’s dental office before digital x-rays were a thing.) The reason I’m not great at money per se is also because of my parents, but for different reasons. My mom loves shopping and has great taste. We would go shopping when she was mad at my dad, secret trips to Nordstroms etc. And my dad liked shopping too in his own way. We would often “get out of the house” by going to Barnes and Noble and browsing DVDs and best sellers.
I was definitely spoiled, but not on purpose I don’t think. My parents, both immigrants, were just trying to keep up with the Jonses,’ literally. Too afraid to not give us the same thing other American kids had, my parents often over-indulged our whims (endless legos for my sibling, endless everything else for me) in hopes of not depriving us of their American dream. But I did my part, too, to ensure I was properly spoiled. As a daddy’s girl I very much knew that I had my dad wrapped around my finger.
One of my favorite stories from my childhood that my mom has recounted to me many times since my dad died was about a time that my dad scolded my mom for buying me too many CDs. “Ashley has enough. NO MORE CDs. No matter what. You cave too easily and that’s why she has so much.” CUT TO: me in Target wanting the new Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack. My mom, for her part tried to hold down the fort. “Dad said no. Sorry, Ashlita.” Soon, an exceedingly brash and annoying 12 year-old me was calling my dad on my mom’s cell phone. In no time we were laughing and yucking it up. I handed the phone back to my mom. “Daddy says yes.”
He also said yes to an electric guitar, a new CD player when I didn’t need one and suggested we go to Circuit City “just to look,” and a fancy new aluminum frame mountain bike that I was too afraid to ride in the actual mountains. The only thing I remember him saying no to was fencing gear and a BMX bike, it wasn’t ladylike. So in summary, yes, I liked stuff, but I was also willing to work for it! And work hard. The only problem was I had exactly zero concept of saving.
One summer I wanted a new Sony VAIO personal desktop computer complete with foldout keyboard. A computer for my own room, so I could go on the internet whenever I wanted and not have to be at the whim of the family computer in the computer room. (P.S. remember when we had computer rooms?) Well it cost $899 and my dad certainly wasn’t going to buy it for me. “I didn’t need it, we already had a computer.” Well the only word more problematic than my dad saying “yes” to me was him saying “no.” Might as well have injected the rage straight into my veins (I know I was a horrible teenager.) So I did what I had to earn the money to work for that computer. I worked 4 days a week, for $6/hr for the entire summer, and at the end of it I spent all $899 I had saved on the computer and happily went back to having exactly zero dollars. When the writer’s strike hit LA in 2023, I was entirely unprepared for the realities of going years without working. Not to mention I was going through a divorce, having just spent all of my savings on our wedding. The combo was not pretty. It was then I learned that all that money I had been making as a writer all those years should have been going into a savings account. Whoops.
Then there’s the other root of my problems, also courtesy of my parents— my parents are, and have always been, extremely generous. My dad wasn’t the oldest sibling, but he was the only boy, and the first of his family to come from Cuba to the states at 19. Because of this he felt a lifelong obligation to take care of everyone. My mom, the youngest of five sisters, was often denied things of her own, destined to wear only hand me downs until she became an adult. The two of them together as adults were a lethal combination of generosity. Everybody should “have their own” (tv, car, entree) and it was our job to help provide it. I never saw my parents let anyone else pay for dinner or lunch, no matter how many people were dining with us. From this I learned that I should be the same with my money, getting dinner, buying gifts (my mom is an excellent gift giver.) But I never really thought anything about saving.
This was likely because of another facet of my childhood— our Christianity. For those who don’t know, Jesus talked A LOT about money. More than he talked about anything else you might assume he talked about from the discourse of modern christians (i.e. being gay or being trans.) How money was the root of all evil, how people worshipped money above heaven, how rich people were greedy when it came to giving to others, how we should tithe 10% of our income to God, because everything we had was ultimately a blessing from God. He also talked about taking care of us, proving the things we really needed. Matthew 6:25-34:
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Damn, he’s fully quoting scripture. I told you I grew up Christian! One day I’ll write a post about what that was like as a secretly gay girl/later trans boy. But for now, back to money. Being that we were very Christian, and that my dad owned his own business (i.e. his dental practice), money was something that we both had to worry about (if the office didn’t make any money then all of my dad’s employees and their families were out of work) and something we weren’t supposed to worry about at all (God will provide, see above verse.) It was a very confusing way to grow up— worrying about money constantly but secretly hoping/”trusting” that God would take care of everything. And the thing was he did, or the universe did, or the commerce of Escondido, CA. We always had enough. And even when we didn’t, it somehow ended up being okay. My dad eventually started his own practice in a building that he bought. A dream of his. As the eldest daughter, and my dad’s shadow, I liked to sit next to him as he paid the bills and learn his systems of doing stuff. (This sadly would come in very handy when I later had to sell his practice and the building he gutted and transformed from scratch into his dream dental office after his sudden death.)
Which leads me to the final reason I’m not great at money, because as long as I can remember my dad was sort of obsessed with death, strangely morbid. Not like in a gothic, Edgar Allan Poe way, but more in a “I almost died on a ship in a storm on the journey over from Cuba and now I constantly think about my mortality” sort of way. It’s an attitude that all of my friends who have had a brush with death at a young age have in common— a deep gratitude for life and this moment, but also an awareness of its impermanence. It’s an attitude that doesn’t lend itself for saving for tomorrow, because tomorrow isn’t promised. So instead of saving for a nice vacation years from now, we went on vacations all the time to wherever we could afford and sometimes famously couldn’t afford. For my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary, they went to Bora Bora before they really could afford it. They put it all on a credit card, hoping things at the office would pick up later (which they did.) Because as my parents’ saw it, you only have your 25th anniversary once, and Bora Bora had been on both their bucket lists for quite some time. And here’s the thing: thank GOD they went on that vacation. Because it turns out they wouldn’t make it to their 35th wedding anniversary. My dad died just a few months after their 33rd anniversary and his 60th birthday.
I know so many people who are waiting to travel after retirement, post-65, or after the kids leave the house, etc etc only to find that illness, sickness, or some other disaster has now taken that option away. I had a wonderful aunt who died in her 40s of stage four pancreatic cancer with thousands saved for a vacation she was going to take later, and holes in her lace underwear (because they were fine for now.) The problem with saving for tomorrow is it’s a nice idea (and one I still aspire to) but it’s harder to practice when you’ve watched so many people around you die— watched their credit card debt disappear and all their earthly possessions remain squarely on Earth. My dad’s Mercedes wasn’t cremated with him. But I did put a picture of his mom, dad, and two sisters taken shortly after they all reunited in the United States in his suit pocket before they cremated him. And that two week trip to Europe? It was with my whole family, and still gets brought up almost every family Thanksgiving and Christmas as one of the funnest times we’ve had together. So you see why I have a hard time “living for tomorrow.“
But the point of why I’m writing this isn’t to explain to you all on a random Friday why I’ll never be able to save, but instead how I’m trying to reframe all of these inherited, deeply ingrained beliefs about money to work for me instead of against me. The other thing that my dad ingrained in me was “everything in moderation, including moderation.” Like Solomon said there’s a season for everything. To reap, to sow, to save, to feast. I think we forget we’re part of nature and we, too, are meant to live our life in seasons. Like squirrels that spend the summer gathering nuts to make it through the winter, perhaps I too can learn to not always indulge and start saving for a rainy (or fiery) day. So this is where I’ve landed. My entire current philosophy of money summed up in three small, words. (literally) — Make do, boo. Stop focusing on what I don’t have, and start focusing on what I do. Or like Tim Gunn says every episode of Project Runway, “make it work.”
And so that’s what I’m trying to do. To make it work. To make do where normally I would just spend. And it’s working, kind of. This week I went four straight days not buying anything! I focused on eating at home, using the things I already pay for (like my ClassPass, my AMC stubs) or using free resources to make it feel like I’m doing something without needing to spend more money. (shoutout to the Burbank library!) It turns out that most of the time I am mindlessly spending money, I’m just looking for something to do— to accomplish. And stupidly waiting in line to get a $6 latte at Starbucks scratches that itch. But lest you think this is an annoying anti-millennial “skip the Starbucks” rant, do not fear. My philosophy du jour isn’t about never, it’s about “not always.” Can I make do for now? One day at a time? Can I chill coffee at home and put it in a fun glass so it feels like Starbucks instead of actually going to Starbucks? Yes, great. Do I have to do that every day for the rest of my life? No. And that’s what I like about this new mindset. “Everything in moderation, even moderation.”
The other bonus of making do is that it is pretty much the most anti-capitalist thing you can do. To make do. (Which is great seeing as billionaires are currently forming an oligarchy and preying off of our insecurities and desires to do so.) But making do, using community resources, learning not to “have enough” but that I already have “more than enough” is basically a big ol fuck you to Jeff Bezos. Which feels like a good way to end this essay. Fuck you, Jeff Bezos.
Have a good Friday, friends. Also would love to hear how you’re tricking your brains into reframing money.
xx,
ASH