067 | Why It’s Important to Enjoy Your Money, Too

Much of mainstream personal finance advice tells you to scrimp and save and hoard your money, so you can possibly have the privilege of enjoying it in 30-40 years.

That’s not sustainable. Instead, I believe in spending on things you enjoy while you work toward your money goals.

In this episode, I share my personal experience with intentionally choosing to spend money on things I enjoy, why trying to deprive yourself until you hit your money goals doesn’t work for most people, and why it’s important to enjoy your money along the way.

Lightly edited transcript appears after the show notes.

Topics Discussed

• my husband’s and my recent conversation about what to do with our money now that we’ve paid off our student loans
• using other people’s stories against yourself
• the connection between money goals and dieting
• how to plan to enjoy your money

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Resources mentioned

Lifestyle Freedom Starter Guide

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Email: hello@rhothomas.com

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Lightly Edited Transcript

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you are doing well and having an amazing day so far. So, today we are talking about enjoying your money. In the personal finance space, there is so much talk about scrimping and saving and spending as little money as you can so that you can hit your money goals, don’t go out to eat until you pay off all your debt. Don’t buy anything don’t spend any money until you achieve financial independence. And if you’ve been following me for a while, you know, I am not about that life. I don’t think that approach is effective for most people. So I’m a big proponent of enjoying your money, and I thought it would be a fun topic to talk about today because it came up recently in my own life. So it’s been just under a month since my husband and I made our last student loan payment. And actually when this comes out it would be right at a month, and we started back at the end of 2016, with over $670,000 of debt, and a negative $342,000 net worth. We had about 200,000 on our mortgage about 10,000 on a car loan and then the rest was student loans, so almost half a million dollars just in student loans, and we paid off everything but our mortgage about a month ago, at the end of August. So we’ve had this goal of paying those loans off for literally years now. And when we finally paid them off our initial thought was like okay, what’s our next goal, right, like we were immediately focused on the next thing that we quote should be doing with our money, and we actually ended up having a conversation, and talking about what we want it to do with the extra money now that we have, you know some more money available in our budget because that last bit that we were paying off was my husband’s student loan for medical school, and the minimum payment alone was 30 $500 Not to mention the extra money we were paying toward it to pay it off faster. So we now have this extra money that’s been going toward loans for the last five years, available to spend. And we were having this conversation about what we want it to do with it, and what we want it to do with any other money we receive like bonuses or we typically get a tax refund because again, initially in both of our minds, it was, You know, before even talking to each other. We should be responsible and put it toward a new goal like retirement or, you know, things like that. But when we took a step back and thought about it and really my husband was the one to bring it up, but we were like, No, we don’t want to immediately put all of the money like redirect everything that was going to loans toward a new goal, because the purpose of money is not just to optimize every single dollar that you have and reach all the goals as quickly as possible, to the detriment of all the other parts of your life. Right, you don’t always have to do the quote responsible thing with your money, even throughout the last almost five years while we were paying off our student loans. We’ve always had line items in our budget for enjoyment. So on one hand, we each get a certain amount of money each month to spend however we want no questions asked. And that amount has changed over the years like it started out kind of small and it’s grown some over the last five years. But we each get that set amount that we can spend on what we want individually, and that’s something we started doing because of some disagreements we were having, early on we first merged our finances, and we were like looking at and judging each other’s spending habits for the first time and so we started doing this set amount that we each get spend however we want it to each month. But then on top of that, we’ve always had like family entertainment budget even before we had kids when it was just my husband and me. We had these amounts that were just for spending, and not necessarily having to go toward something responsible or some goal. That was our way of making sure that we were still enjoying our money, and that our life wasn’t just deprivation until we paid off our student loans, and I’ve told you before, when we first started this whole money journey. I was looking a lot at other financial bloggers and podcasters in the personal finance space, and looking at what they were doing and how far along they were with their goals and all of that, and I was doing a lot of comparing and thinking that we should be further along because I was using their stories, against myself, which is exactly why I tell you not to do that. It doesn’t feel good. It really sucks. Please don’t look at my story, or anyone else’s story, and use it to put yourself down, or make yourself feel bad or say that what you’ve done isn’t good enough because this other person has done more, right, that’s what I used to do, and I didn’t like it. It felt very heavy, a lot, and all of those thoughts about not enoughness just didn’t feel good. But anyway, the point is, I was in this space of, we shouldn’t be spending this and we shouldn’t do this and we shouldn’t do that because I was looking at what was acceptable in mainstream personal finance right, and my husband had to remind me that we actually planned for this, like we have this money in the budget so that we can spend it and still hit our goals, and looking at the fact that we had already planned to spend the money on fun things and still make progress on our goals, almost gave me permission to let go a little and not keep thinking we should be depriving ourselves or we’re not doing this whole money thing right. And so, in this conversation recently, we decided that we will do some traditionally responsible things right, we’re going to increase our retirement savings to max out my husband’s account at work because we have been contributing just enough to get the match, and we’re still going to put some funds toward other investments and our kids college funds and the jury’s still out on like paying extra on the house to pay it off quicker, but we are intentionally going to increase our spending to enjoy more of our money as well. And I want to encourage you when you’re making your budget. Make sure that you include money in it for whatever fun things or entertainment you want like shopping going out to eat vacations, your new technology, whatever the things are for you. Make sure that you have something in there in your budget for those things, so that the money is already accounted for and you’re not looking at all the rules about the things you should be doing with your money, or what you should and shouldn’t be spending on or what you should be saving and all that kind of stuff. Just because you’re on this journey to improve your finances doesn’t mean that you can’t also spend money too. I recently heard someone say something like, we spent all the best years of our lives working in hoarding money for the possibility of enjoying life 30 or 40 years from now. That’s so true, right, like if we’re following the typical personal finance advice, it’s save your money clip coupons spend the least amount you can. Why are you buying lattes like why are you buying avocado toast you shouldn’t be spending money on such frivolous things. There’s so much shame around spending money, like I think people should be able to spend their money, the way they want to. Now I do believe that you want to be constrained with it. Right, so don’t just say YOLO and spend whatever, you know, every month without looking at whether the amount you’re spending makes sense for your financial situation. Make a plan for what you’re going to spend, and we talked earlier about, you know, having something in your budget for going out to eat or going on trips or whatever the things are that you want to do, but make that plan for yourself, of how you’re going to spend that money, and then stick with that plan, and that way you’re able to enjoy your money, but you don’t take yourself off track from your financial goals. You don’t have to do the most responsible thing with your money, and every single decision you make. It doesn’t always have to be about doing the best thing are making the best choice, like sometimes people are so pressed about making sure they’re doing the right thing with their money that they make themselves miserable and they make managing their money such a chore. And it’s hard to enjoy it when you’re coming from that mindset, and that’s not a way to live, because what will happen is you’ll eventually get tired of that. Like it’s not sustainable. I use this analogy a lot but weight loss and money management are so similar because of the mindsets that go into it, right, like we hear all the time about yo yo dieting. I’m going to deprive myself of all the things I love so I can lose weight, but now I’m so miserable, and you know to make myself feel better, I’m going to go back to all my favorite foods that have been telling myself I can’t have. And now I’m right back where I started. The same thing happens with money and budgeting, if you say, oh no I can’t spend on these things I love because I have these money goals and so I’m just gonna cut all those things out that I enjoy and be deprived and, you know, whatever, like what happens for most people is you get to the point that you are feeling so terrible that you just can’t take it anymore. And to make yourself feel better, you go out and shop and splurge on all those things you’ve been telling yourself you can’t have, and it’s worse for your finances than if you would just set that money aside to spend on the front end. So, when you are thinking about managing your money. Don’t think of it from the place of depriving yourself. That’s what we typically see in mainstream media about personal finance and all of that but don’t think of it from that place. You want to think of it instead from the mindset of managing your money in a way that allows you to enjoy your life, while still reaching your money goals. And when you’re working on those money goals, you’ll be able to maintain that strategy and keep going and actually achieve the goals, because you’re not depriving yourself of everything that you enjoy in the interim, so you won’t be miserable along the journey of reaching your goals, regardless how long it takes right if it’s five years if it’s 10 years if it’s 20 years, however long your goal is going to take, you’re not waiting and putting off doing things you enjoy, until this point that you reach your goal, and you’ll be more likely to stick with your plan, and actually reach the goals. So while you’re doing all the responsible things and saving and paying off debt and such. Make sure you’re enjoying your money too. And if you’re not sure where to start, but you know you’re ready to finally learn exactly how to manage your money to hit your goals and do the things you enjoy, I’m here to help. So head to rho Thomas comm slash coaching, and let’s set up a call to chat. Alright so that’s it for this week’s episode, come join me over on social media, and let’s continue this conversation. You can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram, and my handle on Instagram is at I am rho Thomas. Please also take a second to subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes as they’re released. And leave a review which helps the visibility of the show. Finally, please share this episode with a friend or two you think would enjoy it, and if you share on social media, don’t forget to tag me, as we close out friend, I pray that you take some time to check in with yourself, on your money and consider whether you’ve been telling yourself you can’t spend money on things you enjoy because you have to hit your goals. I pray that you receive clarity and guidance around how to manage your money in a way that allows you to spend on those things, while still making progress on your goals. And as always, I pray that you 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.