As you know I’ve written a few entries about how, as an entrepreneur, you sometimes have to give up things in the short term in order to hopefully get even better things in the long term.  For example, I talked about how living in a smaller apartment can help you save money that you can invest into your business.  Sure, you might be able to afford a bigger place, but do you need one?  Probably not.

Sure, you could afford to go out to dinner more often, but do you really need to?  Shouldn’t you be working, anyway?  It’s cheaper to make something at home and eat it at your desk.

Well, I was recently reminded of this “save now for future benefit” thing again.  A few of my friends are planning a surf camp vacation in Costa Rica this summer.

I will not be going.

And I am jealous.

I need to save money and as you may know, it’s hard to take a week off when you’re working on starting your own company.  Once things are up and running, maybe, but not in the early phases.  I’d be super behind if I did that.  And course, I need to save the money that I would otherwise spend on that trip.  Partying and learning to surf for a week definitely sounds like something I would be interested in, and was it ever hard to turn it down, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

So I told my friends they better send me daily pictures and updates.  I have a feeling that might just make me even more jealous, though.  Here I am in my small apartment working and my friends are all out learning to surf in beautiful Costa Rica.  Ok, now I’m getting depressed, because I’m basically just taking a break to write this entry and then I’m gonna get back to working.

It’s kind of weird, though.  After a while you get used to saving money and being frugal and stuff and then it doesn’t really hurt that much to not do things because you really can justify that it wouldn’t be a good use of money.  My old roommate and best friend is one of those people who impulse buys like crazy every time she goes shopping.  You know how they put those impulse items in the checkout lines at the grocery stores?  She’ll buy at least one or two things from each trip.  I used to do the same.   It’s like, “that [insert candy or magazine] looks so good!”  And then you pick up the magazine to read the article you saw advertised on the cover (which almost always ends up not being what you expected) and realize that you’re about to spend $4.99 for a magazine.

Now I hate spending money.  Do I want to spend $4.99 on that?  No.  That’s a lot of money.  Who buys that stuff, anyway?

It’s empowering to feel that way.