The Seven Dollar Skirt

"Money is always on its way somewhere. What you do with it while it is in your keeping and the direction you send it in say much about you. Your treatment of and respect for money, how you make it, and how you spend it, reflect your character." Gary Ryan Blair

One of my favorite movie moments of all time is when a dirty and bedraggled (but still glamorous) Scarlett O'Hara raises a turnip to the sky. She says, "As God is my witness, I will never be hungry again." The Civil War took our heroine from the penthouse to the outhouse pretty quickly, and she wasn't having it.

In order to thrive, we need to do more than just survive. Abraham Maslow tells us that if we are ever going to sit at the top of his pyramid and be fully actualized, the first step is having basic needs met. Struggling financially to pay rent and put food on the table is extremely stressful. When we are poor, it's easy to engage in magical thinking. We think money (a lack of it) is a problem, and we would be right, but it's not the real problem. We decide that once we have money, we will be happy. Everything will be fine.

Then we get money, but magically it doesn't make us happy. We still worry about money, just in a different way. How can we hold on to it, so we are never poor again? How should we invest? What if someone steals from us? How can we avoid paying a lot of taxes? Money is still a focus, it is still a problem, but in a different way.

Those who quote the Bible sometimes tell us that money is the root of all evil. In actuality, the book says that it's the love of money and not money itself that's the problem. Now most of us, whether we are poor, rich or somewhere in between, would deny that we love money. But think about it. If we are thinking about it, worrying about it, obsessing over it, expending all our energy to earn it or spend it or save it, doesn't it sound like we love it? Usually what we focus on is what we truly treasure.

I have been wanting a wool plaid skirt for a while. They are hard to come by, but they are a classic look that I just love. When I was Christmas shopping, I ran across a cute, versatile cotton skirt in a solid color. It was on clearance for $7. What a deal! The problem was, I had nothing that matched it, and nothing in the store matched it either. I found myself becoming a little obsessed about buying this skirt, just because it was $7. Finally I put it back on the rack and just let it go.

Yesterday I stopped in a second hand store, and saw a flash of plaid among the slacks. It was a wool plaid skirt. In my size. Good quality, fully lined and the plaids match up at the seams. It wasn't even with the other skirts, but it certainly seemed to be waiting for me. I tried it on and I loved it and of course, I purchased the skirt. And the best part? It was $7.

Susan