Many years ago, the very first gift Scott bought me was a new video card for my woefully underpowered x386 box. This showed up for me today. Ah, geeks in love....
I'm really bad at buying things for myself, especially the more expensive stuff. My current video card is about 2 years old, and I have been puttering along with its limitations because, well, it works, and new cards are expensive. We're doing better these days now that I'm working again, but still, more often than not the "oh, we don't have any money" fears linger and inhibit my buying behavior.
Flashback: Some years ago, I went out one Saturday with my grandmother to shop for kitchen curtains to replace ones that after many years of service and laundering were starting to look a little ratty. We went to several stores, but Grandma ended up not buying any new ones because everything was either too ugly or too expensive. We went home without any because she couldn't bring herself to pay "too much" for new curtains, even though she could well afford them.
Grandma came to this country quite poor and then weathered the Depression, so her frugality is understandable. But here I am, years later, doing much the same thing. Is it learned behavior from my family, a sign of ageing, or or did the years Scott and I spend struggling financially change my behavior in similar ways?
