WWED?

I have this coworker named E (I don't want to write her name in case she's not down with that). She's a wonderful person, but equally as important (to the YOFL) is her natural frugality. She and her husband own two cars- a nice, newer, sensible Honda with no power windows or door locks, and a really old station wagon. She doesn't spend a lot of money on things that she doesn't need, but she is always socializing with friends and going to community events. To me, it seems that her life priorities are centered on happiness, friendship, education, learning- not owning things or being fancy, and she lives in a pretty fancy town, so I can imagine that the temptation is there.

Today she told me that she bought a GPS (on sale, of course). She went on to explain that over the course of two weeks, she kept a log where she marked down any time she would have used the GPS. After two weeks, I guess there were enough hash marks that she and her husband decided to buy the GPS. I thought this was fascinating, because the GPS was about 130 dollars. I feel confident in saying that most people would have just run out on day one and plopped down the 130 dollars to buy the GPS, without even thinking about it, but not E. She took the time to figure out if the purchase was worthwhile, and then waited until she found a good price (and she paid CASH, obviously!)

I should be getting my tax return any day now, and I have the dilemma of trying to figure out what to do with it. Right now I'm thinking that 100.00 of it will go for new clothes for me and the kids, as we need a couple things like shoes. I will use some of it to buy new eyeglasses, since I can't see, and that is important. Another 200 will go into savings, and the rest will go to my credit card. I have thought long and hard about this, and think this is the best solution I've come up with. I think E would be happy with it.