Question

Who here takes a more relaxed approach? Often times I feel like I’m just making excuses and should suck it up, but I battle with depression, anxiety and a mood/personality disorder and have been fighting for a very long time. This makes budgeting extremely difficult for me as I either a) do things to an extreme or b) don’t do them at all. Often times when I “fail” - for example, go off my budget, if even only by a dollar, or if an unexpected expense comes up - I just completely shut down and quit. It has caused me great difficulty in almost every area of my life. I’m finally in intensive treatment for it and really putting in the work to get better. However, I just cannot follow a zero based budget at the moment . it’s too hard on me. We follow a loose budget, and it’s been working for us and has improved our financial situation significantly in the past few months - we have been able to put money into savings, and always have a cushion leftover. For the sake of my mental health, I can’t sacrifice having a little treat every now and again (date night, etc. ) or else I will inevitably give up entirely. But I just can’t shake the feeling of constantly wondering how much easier it would be if I wasn’t like this. Although our financial situation is 10x better than it was a few months ago, we aren’t making any extra debt payments right now because I honestly feel like this is the most intense I can be at the moment . we’ve made so many small sacrifices and have been very intentional with our money and have seen a huge difference. But I just can’t help but feel like we could be doing so much more, knocking down so much debt and saving more money. Does anybody else face the same battles? Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one which in turn makes me feel like an absolute failure.  

Answer 1

We are very relaxed. We live overseas in Italy right now, and our priority is traveling. So we save $800/month for traveling while still putting money into savings and toward debt. Sure, we could pay off debt sooner if we didn’t travel, but it’s not that serious to us. We’ll still be consumer debt-free by 2022. We also have $200/month in our entertainment budget which is used for eating out, going places, etc.  

Answer 2

I am this way too. And I struggle with finances AND food so it's a personality? thing I'm guessing.  

Answer 3

If this is working for you and your bettering your finances then keep it up! Not every way works for every person. One small step at a time

Answer 4

I'm an all or nothing person, too, and it's hard! We still enjoy life and sometimes that comes with less saving than we could have but ‍♀️. We are paying off all of our credit card debt this year but we are also looking at getting a new car  I'm ok with having car payments even though I know some people aren't. for us it's more of a bill and less of a debt.  

Answer 5

Totally all of nothing over here. and I've jumped to the all end of things. AFTER having health & mental health issues addressed. A lot of people have to get their physical/mental health in a healthy place before even beginning to worry about finances let alone budget. -> Personal <- finance, sure you 'could' being doing more right now but at what cost? Because from the sounds of it *something* will suffer (psst it sounds like that something would be you). Continue working your treatment, implementing into your daily life and feel strong in your self. Than worry about the budget & "buckeling down" should you so feel inspired.  

Answer 6

Mental health first!  

Answer 7

You’re doing great! You’ve made huge improvements in your finances and that’s what this program is about. Building fun into the budget if fun is a priority is what the budget is for. Some people choose a very strict, gazelle intense path and some people don’t. The purpose of budgeting is to tell your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. We spent nearly a year cutting everything we could to the bone in order to pay off a car, which we did. We ended up giving that car to a family member who desperately needed reliable transportation, and we replaced it with a gently used vehicle with a 20% down payment and a small loan at a low interest rate. I’m not breaking my neck to pay it off, I’ve increased what we pay in order to have it paid off in two years instead of four, but that’s it. We want to start taking vacations again (the first year we didn’t take any), we want a little more personal spending money, we have some home repairs we put off last year that need to be addressed, and at the end of the day if we’re not using credit cards to run up debt, we’re saving sinking funds for non-routine expenses, we’re sticking with our spending plan and reducing the balances on our two loans every month, then that’s good enough for us. Some people are willing to sit shivering in the dark eating rice and beans and working three jobs in order to pay off their MasterCard and hats off to them! We’ve tried it both ways and financial success for us, long term, means slow and steady progress on installment debt, no credit card debt, living below our means, funding our sinking funds, cutting out any expenses that don’t serve us, and enjoying our lives. One size does not fit all when it comes to budgeting, and comparing your insides to someone else’s outsides will only lead to feelings of inadequacy. Find what works for you and try to remember that as long as you’re not incurring any new debt, you’ll become debt free at some point. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow and that doesn’t make you bad, or wrong, or a loser. It just makes you different, and what’s wrong with that?