Gift Cards Are My Cryptonite

I must say that I am thankful for every gift card/certificate I have received. The giver was thinking of me and blessed me by using their own money to show me love.  I have never been ungrateful.  That may be my problem.  You see, when I have a gift card in my wallet it stays there for a ridiculous amount of time.  I never want to "waste" it.  I treasure them so much I don't want them to be used for nothing-ness.  Lately my husband has taught me a valuable lesson.  He had gift cards to home improvement stores and since we have been scraping to make ends meet, he used those gift cards to buy things we needed at the house (light bulbs, etc.).  He even had CostcoCash that we used for groceries.  These were presents given to him over the years.  They belonged to him but used them for our family.  I felt awful.  He looked at me and said, "When we get into a better financial state, I can use regular money for what I need or want.  Right now this is what we need to do."  That was so selfless of him that I really treasured it.  Being one to always look for the bargain, I have been shopping around for "The Baby Whisperer" book.  The best deal I could find was on half.com including shipping.  However, I have gift cards for Amazon.com (I loove Amazon).  I didn't want to "waste" them by paying more for the book.  Then I realized that by using the gift cards I am still getting a book for me (not really that selfless) and not taking any money out of our family funds.  Yes I paid a few dollars more, but in reality I paid nothing.  Sometimes the things Hubby says are really wise.  :)