This summer, while I am on vacation, I am reposting some previous columns, albeit with minor edits. These are columns that are largely timeless. Also, they are hard to find on the current website as when I migrated over from the old one, all my old posts were consolidated into one entry. Enjoy!
Originally posted July 13, 2021 — the hot dog eating contest
In language learning, one milestone is when you dream for the first time in the language you are studying. I’m not sure if such a milestone applies to financial tracking, but that is what happened to me. That is, I dreamed that I was logged into my bank site, finding new expenses to add to my recorded transactions. Then I saw $315.00 my wife had spent to enter a hot dog eating contest. I asked her about this unusual expense.
This brings up an interesting point. One of the benefits of tracking your expenses is that it can help you communicate with people you share your finances with. However, the way that you ask a question can make a big difference. For example, if good communication is the goal, *avoid asking something like the following:
- Why in the world would you spend that much money to enter such a ridiculous contest?
- Why didn’t you tell me about this expense ahead of time?
- Is it worth spending our money on that?
I find it very easy to ask a question like one of the above. And even if I find better words to use, my tone and body language are probably communicating that I think it is a ridiculous expense.
I am not an expert on what best to say, but it is probably something like:
- Tell me about the contest. Commentary: for this to work, I am going to need to get the tone right. That is, it has to be genuinely curious. Also, I am going to need to listen without interruption. Does this mean that I have to agree? Absolutely not. But if communication is the goal, I need to understand what is happening with the other person.
What happened in the rest of my dream? When I asked her about the expenses, she explained that they were to cover the costs of the things needed for the contest. In my other-world state of consciousness, this made sense, and that was the end of it. I am glad, though, when I woke up to find out that the expense wasn’t real!
The moral of the story: hledger can help us if we have a dream to communicate, but it is up to us to communicate well rather than poorly.