Personal Finance Burnout
For the few readers I might have had on this site, you’ve probably noticed I haven’t posted in a few months. This is due to a few reasons, most of which is me brushing up on my programing and business skills for my full time job. The other reason, as you may have guessed from the title, is that I am getting a little tired of writing about personal finance all of the time. I am tired of thinking of little “hacks” to save money. I hate the idea of pinching pennies. To me personal finance isn’t something that you should fret about every day. Personal finance has become something that you just do.
I hate feeling bad about spending money, especially on quality things such as organic food or electronics such as my camera. Reading other personal finance blogs made me feel like I was never doing enough to be frugal or to save more money, and I began feeling burnt out on writing about personal finance.
I have not gone to the dark side of spending money though. Au contraire, I have increased my 401k savings to 20% of my pretax pay, and my wife has budgeted enough to max out her Roth IRA by the end of the year. We still have some debt left, but we have paid off over $26,000 in debt over the past two years, and we are slowly paying off the rest. We are still driving one car, we still don’t have cable. We don’t have iPhones, and we don’t get Starbucks regularly. But we do spend our money on things like organic vegetables and grass fed beef, and I am not going to feel bad about shopping at Whole Foods just because other personal finance authors think Walmart is the best place to buy your food.
The truth, for me anyways, is that if you are doing the right things like saving a decent portion of your income, planning for variable expenses like car repairs, paying down your debt without putting on new debt, and making smart investments, who cares what you do with the rest of your money? If buying a latte every day makes you happy, then why not do it? Because a personal finance author tells you that you shouldn’t?
Should I tell my wife that we shouldn’t save for a vacation because the economy is bad? Nope. As the popular saying goes, life is a journey, not a destination. I want to enjoy my time here as much as possible, and I don’t want to wait until I’m retired to do it. Most personal authors are always saving for some other time. That’s great. But I get 4 weeks of vacation a year, so shouldn’t I use it while I can?
I don’t want this to come off as a rant against saving money. I think more people need to get the basics of saving and investing down and then put those basics into practice. But really, do we need more than the basics? Once you’re saving 15-20% of your income, should you really worry about how much more you can save? Why should I save every cent I can just so I can spend it at some other point in time? Personal finance is all about balance unlimited wants with limited resources, and trying to maximize your happiness.
I will try to write more often here, but no promises. Until then, save and spend wisely!
1 comment
100 percent feel you. Food spending should never be compromised,
And Walmart is evil.