Two Fridays this spring, I ordered the exact same pizza.
Same place. Same order. Forty-eight dollars.
The first Friday felt good.
We ate outside. The week was over. Nobody had to cook. Nobody had to clean. It felt like a little celebration. We’d had a good week, and this was us enjoying it.
The second Friday was completely different.
The week was long. Things felt heavy. I was exhausted.
That same $48 pizza didn’t feel like a celebration. It didn’t even really feel like relief.
It felt like managing.
Same amount. Same food. Something completely different happening underneath.
And I’ve been thinking about that.
Because how do you log that in a budgeting app?
It just says:
Pizza — $48
But those two purchases weren’t the same at all.
Maybe we need better words for money
When we talk about how money feels, our vocabulary can get pretty small.
Stressed.
Fine.
Maybe somewhere in between.
Which is kind of amazing, considering how often money shows up in our lives.
I’ve started paying more attention to how I feel when I spend.
Sometimes money feels heavy. I avoid it. I don’t want to open the bill or check the balance.
Sometimes it feels foggy. I’m spending, but I’m not really thinking about it.
Sometimes it feels light. I’m excited. I’m treating someone. I’m buying something I’ve been looking forward to.
And sometimes I feel steady. I’m not avoiding anything. I’m not reacting. I’m just making a decision.
The more I pay attention, the more I notice that the purchase itself only tells part of the story.
How I felt when I made it tells me something the transaction never could.
Most money advice skips right over this.
Spend less.
Wait 24 hours before you buy something.
Cancel the subscriptions.
And that’s not bad advice.
Money can be emotional. For most of us, probably more than we realize.
We just don’t spend much time noticing what’s happening underneath.
One thing to try
Not a budget.
Not another app.
Just ask yourself one question the next time you spend money:
How did I feel when I spent this?
That’s it.
You don’t have to fix anything. You don’t have to decide whether the purchase was good or bad.
Just notice.
There isn’t a right feeling to have.
I actually tracked my spending this way for about two weeks. Not just what I spent, but how I felt about each transaction.
And something surprised me.
I felt a lot of gratitude.
Not because every purchase made me happy. It didn’t. But pausing long enough to notice made me see things I would have otherwise rushed right past.
The electric bill wasn’t exciting, but we had electricity.
Groceries were expensive, and I was able to buy food for my family.
I paid my car registration recently, and my first reaction was frustration.
Seriously? Why so much?!
But right behind that was another feeling: gratitude. We had the money to pay it.
Both things were true.
A while back, we bought a stand-up paddleboard at Costco. It was enough money that I definitely wondered whether it might just end up sitting in the garage.
But what I remember feeling was anticipation.
I was already picturing mornings on the ocean with my family.
And honestly, it’s turned into one of the most joyful purchases we’ve made.
The spreadsheet only knows we bought a paddleboard at Costco.
It doesn’t know the rest of the story.
That’s what I’m trying to pay more attention to.
Big or small — gas, groceries, an electric bill, a registration bill, a $48 pizza — just notice what comes up.
Sometimes we really are stretched. There are seasons when the numbers are genuinely hard and no amount of positive thinking changes that.
And I don’t think gratitude means pretending otherwise.
But I’ve started wondering how much good in our lives gets hidden inside transactions we barely notice.
The groceries we were able to buy.
The lights that came on when we flipped the switch.
The dinner that gave everyone a break after a hard week.
The paddleboard that became mornings on the ocean.
Maybe paying a little closer attention helps us understand ourselves better.
Sometimes it might help us notice that what we’re spending on doesn’t actually matter to us.
Other times, it might remind us just how much it does.
And maybe, every once in a while, it helps us notice something we already have — and feel grateful for it.
That’s the whole project.
If you try it, I’d genuinely love to hear what you notice. You can reach me at connect@tonydoble.com.
— Tony
P.S. If someone came to mind while you were reading this, feel free to send it their way.
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