165 | Fun Money

In this episode, let’s talk about including fun in your finances and how to integrate fun money into your money plan without taking yourself off-track from your goals.

• • the importance of including fun in your budget
  • the key to including fun in your budget
  • the concept of fun money accounts
  • how some of my clients have used fun money accounts
  • how my husband and I set up our fun money accounts
  • how to set up your fun money account
  • the value of having a fun money account

You’re listening to Wealthyesque. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom, and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Today we are talking about fun and money accounts. I think it’s important for you to include money for fun things in your budget even when you’re working on financial goals like paying off debt and saving. Just because you’re working to improve your finances doesn’t mean that you can’t also enjoy your money, too. A while back, I heard someone say something to the effect of we spend the best years of our lives working and hoarding money for the possibility of enjoying our lives decades from now, and that has always stuck with me. We don’t have to put off spending on fun things or doing fun things and entertaining things and whatever else until we hit retirement age, all in the name of having better personal finances. Your money is meant to be spent. It’s something that can enhance your life. And so we want to be able to use money for fun things, but the key is to do it in an intentional way. So you include that fun spending in your plan for what you’re gonna spend in the month. That way you’re able to enjoy your money you’re able to spend on those fun things, but you don’t take yourself off track from your financial goals. You don’t want to be so pressed about doing the right things with your money that you make yourself miserable in the process because then you won’t stick to your plan and you won’t achieve your goals the concept of fun money accounts is one way to spend on things you enjoy without taking yourself off track. So this came up from when my husband and I first combined our finances and we start managing our money together. And we had some different ideas about how that money should be spent. So he was spending a whole lot of money on Starbucks and I was spending what I thought was a reasonable amount of money at Mac and beauty places and stuff like that. These specific areas of spending were the biggest source of contention for us early on and managing our money together. And so we ultimately decided that we were going to spend a set amount of money so we each got a set amount of money that we could spend no questions asked. The point of the fund money account started as a way to have money that you can spend however you want to without impacting your partner if you share finances, but over time with working with my clients has also developed into a way for couples and individuals to spend money on fun things without messing up their financial goals. So I started suggesting the fun money account with some of my clients who don’t manage their finances with a partner so they could make sure that they weren’t going overboard with their fun spending and dipping into the money that they needed for other areas of their budget. Then one of my couples decided to open a separate account for their fun spending as a couple on top of the separate accounts for each partners individual fund spending and that worked well for them. So if that works for you too. That’s great. I just want to caution you on opening too many accounts because we’ve talked before about keeping your system simple and how that’s important to make sure that you don’t feel overwhelmed and things like that, trying to manage it. Getting into the specifics of how we did our fun money accounts. We had a joint account that all of our money came into and we also still had our individual checking accounts from before we put our money together and we weren’t doing anything with those. So we decided to pull a little money from the joint checking account and put it into those individual accounts each month and that became our fun money. And we do that through an automatic monthly transfer. It goes from our joint checking account to each of our individual accounts for us to spend our fun money. What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna have the set amount of money to be able to spend on whatever you want, no questions asked, and it’s gonna go in a separate account that’s just for your fun spending. And if you manage your finances with a partner, then they would have the same and you get to decide how much you’re going to have for fun money spending, or you and your partner will decide if you share your finances. My husband and I started out with around $100 a month and we have increased that over the years as where we are with our finances has changed. So you just want to keep in mind the goals that you have as you decide how much this will be for you. And this can get really fun. I bought my very first luxury designer items while I was in the thick of paying off debt using my fund money and it had no impact on our progress with paying off the debt. Like I would just get my set amount of money each month in my account and I would intentionally not spend it all so that I made sure I still had some left at the end of the month. And I just kept doing that and I allowed that money that I didn’t spend to build up until I had enough to buy my stuff. So there were no issues no questions asked no impact on our family finances whatsoever. The reason I love fun money accounts so much is they give you the freedom to buy things and have your fun without taking you off track from your goals. And without that nagging sense that you shouldn’t be spending this money. You have a license to spend because the money is already set aside specifically for fun spending. And an added bonus for those of you who share your finances is implementing this will help cut down on some of the tension and money fights that you might be having with your partner. Because as I mentioned, the whole concept came up in the first place when my husband and I had some tension around our spending as a couple. So that is the concept of fun. Money is a game changer for your finances, especially if you manage them with someone else. And listen, this is one of the concepts from my money membership for lawyers that’s opening on September 14. The entire membership is geared toward helping lawyers manage their money better. So make sure you get on the waitlist at rho thomas.com/waitlist so you don’t miss it. All right, that is it for this week’s episode. Come connect with me over on social media. You can find me on LinkedIn rho Thomas and Instagram I am rho Thomas. Subscribe to the show and leave a review both of which help more people to find it. And please think of a friend or two who could use this information and share the episode with them. As we close out friend I pray that you take the information you learn here, apply it in your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you as you do that consistently. Week after week. You’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.