Often sacrifice is brought up as a necessary component of personal finance management. The so called "latte factor".
After watching the first few episodes of Ken Burn's The War documentary, I've realized that I know next to nothing about true sacrifice.

Giving up the gourmet coffee or dropping the Cable TV is nothing compared to throwing oneself into harms way. How would we react today if we had to use rationing coupons? What hardships are we willing to bear for our country today?

Here is an interesting link from Mother Jones with various factoids about credit cards.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/exhibit/2007/09/exhibit.html

After reading the following factoid,

"Americans owe $850 billion in credit card debt. The world's 54 poorest countries owe $412 billion in foreign debt."

it occurs to me that Bono should just drop his Debt Forgiveness Campaign and let the American Consumers add the debt to their credit cards. What's a little more debt!

When it comes to spending money, I don't seem to have too much trouble denying things for myself, but have much more difficulty in denying things to my wife or children. I can say, "We can't afford it" occasionally, but either guilt, frustration, or fatigue usually get to me eventually and I cave. For instance, I currently drive a 1995 Ford sedan with over 154,000 miles on it and no debt attached. My wife drives a much newer Honda CRV which she still owes about $5,000 on. She wants to get a larger vehicle. I suggested we wait until her car is paid off, a little over a year. She seemed ok with that, but I know the thought will come up again in a month or two. Each time I suggest holding off, I feel a bit more guilt.

When my oldest daughter was entering the sixth grade she took an entrance exam for a private school. She was accepted into the school. At the time she applied, I didn't know exactly how expensive the school was. Once I found out, I ran the numbers and told my wife that we really couldn't afford it. Obviously, I should have researched things more ahead of time. To make a long story short, my daughter graduated from the school last year. The cost to me for 7 years of middle and high school was over $70,000. Her mom and I have also been divorced for about 5 years now.

For some reason I can't seem to be happy if I spend money or if I don't spend money. Maybe it's my Catholic upbringing to have to feel guilty or I'm not doing something right.