Ok so how much do you agree with the title of this post? Normally I’m very “There’s no Wrong answer“, but in this case there is. The title is totally true!! You don’t have to be a math genius to do well with your money! We believe that debt, saving, spending, investing is a math problem! It’s not!
It’s mainly a behaviour or beliefs problem that is keeping us stuck! be it in spending or in saving, because it’s a problem when you are a spender and you spend too much, but it’s just as unhealthy to be a saver and do nothing more than save! And we can both agree that being a spender or a saver have nothing to do with math but rather with personality, the way we were brought up, how money was handled in our house when we were rowing up!!! there are lots of exterior factors at play here.
I’m a spender. I love doing my budget every month, I’ve been doing it for a few years now. To this day (like yesterday!) I get in trouble when I don’t take the time to sit and look and update my budget every week. That’s just me. Little story: last week I was happy, everything went so well! I worked a lot, made huge progress personally, went shopping, forget to change money into my checking account and have €25 to pay in bank charges because I spent more money than I had in the account! Have to sneak that one past my husband… Or have a wine and cheese this week so he won’t notice ;)! This one is a MATH problem!!!!, but the point I’m trying to make is, it’s also behaviour, I know me, I know I have to commit to do the budget stick to it and before I decide to go shopping I have to look at the numbers in the account to see if I need to put some money there! (that’s the exact amount I needed to buy a nice throw pillow I saw in a store I love! I won’t be getting it now! Maybe!)
Why do I keep doing this, you may ask? Well, because I know I have the money, I just have to go to another account to get it! So I should have known better, and I do, but I was in such a good mood that I didn’t even think about it. I just swiped, no, I just taped my card on the little machine it biped and bam! I was the proud new owner of yet another throw pillow, vegan supplements, t-shirt, (the list goes on!). Granted, it doesn’t happen often but when it does… horror story. I can kick myself because, here I am telling everyone why they should budget and plan and organise their money and I’m paying bank charges… (sigh)
If there’s anything to get from this post is… don’t beat yourself up! it happens to the best of us! pick yourself esteem up again and keep going. The only thing you shouldn’t do when this happens to you is throw in the towel! that’s the way to insure you won’t get on the right track EVER!!!! It’s like when you are on a diet to loose those few pounds and you eat a cookie. You shouldn’t have but you did, so now what? you aren’t just giving up and eating the whole box! You just drink glass of water (to wash all the calories away!) and you keep going! Specially don’t beat yourself up.
Now, the best part, I have a trick to make sure this happens as less often as possible! I take that money (the charge I paid) from Sara’s money category for the following month. So, instead of my 150€ for April, I only get 125€. Believe me it’s not fun but, I do it so that I hold myself accountable. I need a reminder that it’s not ok to pay bank charges and still buy everything I want (it’s not even a need!). I’m getting better at this but since we paid off our debt I also got less careful! That’s why I know I need the accountability. That’s why I’m forcing myself to write this here (I’m ashamed but I also need to tell it to someone so that I get better! and do better!).
So there you have it! I’m only human and I refuse to let anyone think that this things only happen to “other people” or that I’m that much better because it doesn’t happen to me! Sorry not true! and I understand if I’m not your person because you really want someone on this financial journey who doesn’t make mistakes, and I truly wish you luck! But promise me that if you feel stuck or need that accountability you reach out to someone else to help you out because it’s kinda hard to do it alone!
S – The Sparkling Budgeteer
