Saving money is like dieting...

Seriously, what is the difference between pinching pennies and counting calories?

If you keep the pennies off your bill, you're that much richer. If you keep calories out of your food, you're that much thinner, right?

Okay, that is really not my point. The point is that while it is great to save money and great to diet, you cannot take either one to the extreme. 

That seems to happen a lot when dieting, denying yourself indulgences, counting each and every calorie and then getting upset at yourself if you go over by a small amount. It can just make you miserable.

A friend of mine once starting socking away every single penny she could. I mean, she never bought anything she didn't absolutely need, never went out and basically didn't have any life. 

Then she cracked and went on a spending spree. She'd deprived herself so much that she needed to overindulge. 

Same with dieting. If you consume yourself with every calorie, one day you will crack and you will overindulge. It's just a natural thing to do.

So what do you do? Again, saving money is just like dieting. You have to give yourself a break and be a little flexible.

Every once in a while, go out to dinner, hang out with friends, do what makes you happy. You can do it without spending your life's savings. You'll find that you can keep up the savings if you release yourself from the constraints a time or two.

And if I'm sticking with the diet comparison, have a candy bar once in a while or whatever it is you've stricken from your life. 

Bottom line is that you cannot keep denying yourself something, whether it's money or food, for too long of a period or you will crack. And if you crack, you probably will do much worse damage to your pocketbook or scale than you would if you allowed yourself to indulge once in a while.

By the way, that friend spent two years paying off that "splurge" she went on. The credit card fees and interest added up to another 35% over what she spent initially. The plus of it was that she never did anything like that again and I will always remember that happening to her. 

It was a good lesson for me as well, luckily a much less expensive one.