Worth the Splurge

I’m a stay-at-home mom, and my husband and I are really trying to stick to some financial disciplines, despite some minor aggravations like waiting in line for our one bathroom.

While we are pretty frugal, there are a few little splurges that I work into our budget, because they make a big difference in a mom’s quality of life.

Date night: We recently spent an evening at Cusanelli’s on Lemay Ferry Road just before our new daughter was born, enjoying steak and pasta. It was a splurge, but we had free babysitting just two blocks away from our house. One of our favorite spots is on Telegraph, where we have been sharing wings and salad since our dating days.

Why it’s worth it: Date night is much cheaper than divorce. We can be tempted to spend a lot of money on electronics, home improvement and stuff for our kids, and forget to budget in an important investment in marriage. We don’t do it often enough.

A couple of weeks ago, we were sitting at the dinner table after the kids had left, following a particularly stressful round of siblings fighting and other daily aggravations. I looked at Jason and said, “What was it like before we had kids?” We were married a long time before having kids, but sometimes we forget that there was an “us” before there was an “all of us.”

Memberships: We have so many great, free things to do in St. Louis. One of my favorites, though, has a charge that gets pretty pricey for a family. I love to take my kids to the Magic House, and I have found that the membership is worth the cost.

Why it’s worth it: If I pay the entrance fee for the day, I will endure tantrums, hunger and exhaustion to make sure I get my money’s worth, even if I got in with coupons. So, the end result is that I just won’t go and save myself the aggravation. But if I buy the membership, I feel totally comfortable knowing that if we are
there for an hour and things go south, I can come back another day.

A small indulgence: One splurge that keeps me kicking on high gear all day is great smells in my house. With two kids in diapers, I wash my hands often and my living room is in danger of smelling like a diaper pail. My solution is to use nice hand soap in the kitchen just for mom and often keep candles burning in my living room.

Why it’s worth it: When you’re at home all day, lovingly tending to your kids’ needs, sometimes it’s good to have something to remember what you love, too. My hand soap is really only used by me, so I look for scents that remind me of my childhood, like the lilac scent that mimics a bush that was behind our house near Hampton Village when I was a kid, or a lemony scent that reminds me of the soap at our honeymoon resort.

Time-savers: There are a few things that are great, just because they buy minutes back into your day. For instance, I love a dry shampoo product called Umberto Dry Clean that helps me get an extra day out of a shampoo and blow-dry. My hair is relatively thick, and I have much more pressing things to do than stand there waiting for my hair to dry.

Why it’s worth it: The pressing things I have to do generally involve keeping my one-year-old from destroying my house. Lately her favorite target is my make-up bag, so I figure that, in the long run, I’m saving money on beauty products. And I spend a lot less time trying to understand why a kid would want to eat lipstick.

Splurges are best enjoyed in small quantities. Splurge too much and they lose their appeal to guilt and money stress. But if you can work a few in, they might give you a treat that makes waiting for your turn in the bathroom much more bearable.