So we’ve been talking about budgeting and organising money and all things people don’t want to talk about… I’ve talked about setting a Christmas fund and a vacation fund so that you can set money aside and when those events come around you are all set up to enjoy them without stressing about the money!
Well, one of my friends came around to the blog and read a few posts, one was the one I talked about Christmas funds and she told me how much she enjoyed. (that was nice! I thought.). My friend just wrote me a text to tell me that I should talk about sinking funds because people would take me more serious if I used big words and it looked like I knew what I was talking about… (sigh!) That was a hard blow!
I asked her, well, do you know what sinking funds are? And she quickly told me that no, she didn’t, but she read a title on a money magazine and it looked like something I should know about. Let me just get this out there: I appreciate that you are here and I’d love if you stick around but, I’m not a financial guru with all the right terms and words that you’d expect to read in a “money” magazine. I don’t like those terms because they used to confuse me when I was already struggling with getting out of debt let alone deal with learning the terms I would never use. I got out of debt and I never once said “sinking funds”, of course I use the strategy but I prefer to use other words to describe the act of rather than make people feel less smart because they don’t know the right financial or economic terms to use when they talk about their money and how to get out of debt.
I wasn’t upset with my friend for saying that to me! She’s my friend and she wouldn’t say anything to hurt me or make me feel bad. However it brought back all the memories of when I was feeling so low and when I’d ask someone about some budget strategy or investment product they would use big words and wouldn’t be able to explain it to me in layman’s terms. That hurt until the day I realised that the two reasons they didn’t explain it better to me were:
- They needed to bust themselves while making me feel bad
- They didn’t know what the hell they were talking about!
So please, don’t pay attention to those who try to act superior to you and don’t explain things to you in your own language, chances are they don’t know what they are talking about! But by all means, learn the terms and all things finances because it never hurts to know. Oh, and always ask whoever is explain finances to you to explain it to you as if you were really dumb. I do that now and sometimes I come away even less sure about something than I was before I asked for that explanation! If you thrive on big and righteous words this is not the place for you. I’d like it to be, but it’s not and it’s ok! We have to find our people!
Now for those infamous Sinking Funds, that is just the term used to explain the mason jar we have way in the back of the kitchen cupboard that we use to save money for Christmas, vacations, a new car, a nice bag for our birthday!! Or the bank account we hide behind our checking account because the money in there is already spoken for the above mentioned! or other things we are saving for. (wedding, wedding gift, bike, lunch at the new Two Star Michelin restaurant once the lockdown is over and we can once again go out to dinner!)
Well that was easy! See you didn’t know what sinking funds were but you already have sinking funds written in your budget. Now all you have to do is keep on going saving for Christmas because, sinking funds, mason jars or hidden checking account what really matters is when those times come around you have the money there so that you spend the time having fun and enjoying yourself rather than stress because you didn’t know about sinking funds!!
S – The Sparkling Budgeteer