Where Your Heart Comes into Personal Finances
- Author: Chris Remington
- Posted: 2024-07-15
Most personal finance literature tries to keep your heart out of things. You are expected to act only as a rational person, listening to your head at all time in being a budgeting machine. However, this is not how the average human being is capable of living. In this way, many of these expectations are simply unrealistic. People need to let their heart into things, or else they will lose the joy in life, all in the name of a budget. Here are some ways that you can incorporate your heart into your personal finances.
Budget Indulgence Money
Nearly every personal finance experts advises you to take scissors to your budget and cut out every luxury. This takes a lot of the joy from life. The truth is that we enjoy treating ourselves well now and then. Without these pleasures, we would have a hard time making it through life. The trick here is to include a line item in your budget for various miscellaneous things that make you feel better. Instead of planning every luxury down to the penny, you have the ability to buy what you want when you want it. This means that you can have a more loosely defined bucket that can allow you to be a human being and treat yourself well.
Don't Overbudget
There is such a thing as budgeting too much. Of course, you should track your spending and have a relatively continuous idea where you stand with regard to your financial goal. Yet, there is a point where your head can completely overwhelm your heart when it comes to budgeting. Budgeting is often a push and pull between your heart and your head. In a sense, it is subjugating your heart in favor of your head. However, focuses too much on that voice in your head can ultimately drive you nuts. The stress can be almost every bit as bad as having financial problems. No expert will tell you to stop budgeting, but they may tell you not let it control your life.
Keep a Place for Family in Your Budget
One of the most important things that you can budget for is family time. This is time that you will never get back if you miss out on it right now. You should use some of your "everything else" pot to treat family to a nice activity. Moreover, if you are planning the financial inputs in your budget and you do have some side hustle, do not overplan your time so that you have nothing left for your family. Being with your family can be expressed in your budgetary priorities both in how you spend your time and money.
Maximize Your Entertainment Dollars
When it comes to your spending on entertainment, you should never completely eliminate it. If you get rid of fun activities, your enjoyment of life will suffer. However, there is a way to economize and spend smartly when it comes to entertainment. It is better to entertain yourself more often and spend less than it is to splurge mightily on one or two fun things now and then. Your heart tells you that it is important to have fun more often than once or twice a month. There are many ways to spend less when you go out without being cheap. For example, skip the popcorn and soda at the movies and you will be able to go out double because those equal more than the cost of a movie ticket. If you are going to sports games, there is nothing wrong with the cheap seats because you can afford four games for the price of one premium ticket.
Minimize Rather Than Eliminate
Budget experts tell you to eliminate extras from your budget that you do not need. However, there was a reason why you were spending money on these things. If you cut them out of your life completely, chances are that you would miss them. To listen to your heart, you can keep things in your life. Instead of cutting them out completely, spread your cuts over numerous areas. This way you can have a little of everything as opposed to making wholesale eliminations. Having a more broad-based life will satisfy your heart. Besides, it is often difficult to decide what to cut out completely. The resulting hesitation may scare you away from budgeting completely.
