Our Financial Makeover Series
talks about personal finance basics and lets you figure out what applies best
to your own unique situation. In Part 1, we talked about avoiding fees and
their potential devastating financial pitfall. We also suggested to open a
no-fee chequing account to get out of the perpetual monthly banking fee rip-off.
Today, we’ll continue
to try to bring excitement to what many consider a tediously boring subject.
Like many, we used to consider
budgeting like a restrictive thing. Plainly put, expenses were bad, and income
was good. In practice, it mostly translated into trying to have less expenses. At
some point, it could also transform into working more to have more income. With
that perspective, budgeting was no fun at all.
It was like being on a
strict diet all the time. Spending would be like eating. Although some of it is
essential to your survival, too much of it is plainly bad. It can either get
you fat or poor. With that thinking, discretionary expenses like desserts and
treats can be devastating to your wellbeing. In the same fashion, exercise can
be compared to income. Regular doses of it can get you in better shape. In the
end, this only meant a lot of sacrifice.
Because I liked numbers,
I still found some pleasure in it. But to be frank and despite some success,
our penny-scratching restrictive budget was a torture that kind of got lost in
all the spreadsheets. No insane person would get excited about it. Nobody was
really interested to get involved in it either.
Fortunately, our way to
budget transformed over the years. It’s now more about pleasure. It’s much more
motivating knowing it allows us to get and do more of what we love. We finally
realized that, after basic expenses, we could do whatever we liked with the
rest of our hard-earned money.
So, to expose our
renewed point of view, this post will be about the pleasure of budgeting. We
hope you’ll discover how you could enjoy life more with clever budgeting.
Next time, we’ll talk
about when we were kind of halfway there with our previous approach that still
gave us significant power over our finances thru sensible budget choices.
An Efficient Tool to Boost Your Fun Level
One key to make budgets
attractive is to put some spice and fun into it. Wouldn’t it be great if your
budget allowed you to have more fun? The great news is that it truly can!
