How to make budgeting/ saving fun?

January 13, 2023 6:29 AM

I know this might be a very childish question but I'm battling a spending addiction and I was wondering if anyone had found any way to make budgeting/saving fun?

Thus far, spending has been my stress outlet and as I'm stressed every other day, you can see how the expenditure adds up.

Towards the end of last year I would buy small things every other day on Vinted and Depop, justifying to myself that they were just small purchases. But it added up to a totally unacceptable and unhealthy amount.

Has anyone found alternative ways to manage stress and/or made budgeting and saving a more fun exercise?

posted by Sunflower88 to Work & Money (17 answers total)

Use Mint. It'll take some time to set up your budgets and teach it how to categorize your transactions, but that exercise is useful in itself.

Then Mint will send you cheery little scolds when you're close to exceeding a budget, send you congrats when you've met savings goals, etc.

You can also set up custom budgets. If you know you've got a problem with a specific store or a specific type of product, you can set up a budget JUST for that, to allow yourself some spending in that category but not an excessive amount.

I'm at a place in my life where I don't "need" Mint, but I like it a lot so I keep it. It's handy to see all my transactions in one place, get a quick at a glance full picture, and the UI is simple.
posted by phunniemee at 6:55 AM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I use Pinterest when my fun spending gets too high. I have a board where I save things that I'd like to buy, and finding and curating that feels very close to online shopping. Then when I do have some spare cash, I shop the board and get to choose what I know I've already narrowed down. Mine is like 80% books, yarn and stationary.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:09 AM on January 13, 2023 [11 favorites]

But actually my first best piece of advice for budgeting, I'm putting this in a separate comment because it's not as "fun"--don't put the money somewhere it's easy to spend.

Get several high yield savings accounts at banks that aren't where you do your checking and direct deposit a portion of your paycheck straight into them. This isn't your money, it belongs to your savings accounts. It's not there for you to spend.

Savings accounts that I have:
-Emergency savings. This is enough so I can pay my basic expenses for 6 months if my income stops. I don't touch this money.
-Home savings. I have a house now, and houses need things. This account belongs to my house. When I needed a new roof and a new AC last year, the money was there. It didn't even hurt (much 😖) because I had already spent that money on my house by putting it into my home's savings account. Many people would consider this to be part of their emergency account, but it's psychologically useful to me to have this broken up into distinct buckets.
-Spending savings. This is money for me to spend on fun things. I don't have to budget for fun things, because it's already there. If I liked traveling, or had an expensive hobby, I'd make a savings account for that, too. You can make your savings accounts suit your needs and wants.

The crucial thing is that this calculation happens BEFORE your spending money. This isn't your budget, it's savings. For me, I put about 150% of my basic expenses into my checking account and do my budgeting for the month off of that. The rest all goes into savings. (Yes, I recognize the extreme privilege of having income in excess of my expenses at all.) This keeps me in a very safe and comfortable spot for my overall financial plan. I can spend what I need to spend, have leftover cash for extras I want without having to worry about a budget at all, and my security net is safely tucked away where I can't easily reach it.
posted by phunniemee at 7:16 AM on January 13, 2023 [10 favorites]

My less macro suggestion is make finding *free* stuff your new passion. What does your local library offer (free streaming, dvds, passes, books, etc.?) What lending libraries are in your area? Free festivals and fun? Freecycle/recycling/used clothing swap groups?

Another alternative is to spend your time on giving - volunteering etc. - rather than shopping. I know it's not the same but in a way shopping is addressing a need - for novelty, for fun, sometimes for recognition (cute clothes etc.)

A third is to spend your time and a small amount of money on beautifying rather than buying - paint to spruce up your house/old furniture and so on.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:03 AM on January 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

What do you want to be using your money for instead (e.g. emergency fund, retirement, buying a home)? Focus on those things when you’re stressed, like how nice it will be to know you have the option of quitting your job, or plan what you want your eventual home to be like. It’s not fun vs. not fun, it’s fun-now vs. fun-later.

Keep some money in your budget for fun purchases and make a plan for how you’ll spend it (weekly shopping trip? pick something off a list of fun purchases you want to make?)

Review your purchases over the last few months and reflect on how you feel about them. For example, I felt like I spent too much last year, but I was quite happy with all my purchases and wanted them more than I wanted additional savings. I made a budget that reflects how much I’ve been enjoying new clothes, while still setting aside some money because being able to buy a new furnace when this one gives out will also make me really happy.
posted by momus_window at 8:11 AM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

This isn't exactly fun, but I make it a point to wait a while between thinking "oh, I should buy [x]" and putting in an order. The more it costs relative to my budget, the longer I make myself wait. If I still want it after a few days/weeks/months, not only do I know that I really want it (instead of it being an impulse), I've also had some time to save for it. When I had less income, that was the way I managed things.

The other psychological thing I do is to keep an eye on my credit card balances. I pay off my cards in full every month (I know that's a luxury), so I know roughly where my spending trends are. It also lets me say things to myself like "oh, well, I want [x] but I'm close to spending more than I want to this month. I'll see if I still want it during my next billing cycle." To some extent that's just forcing myself to space things out, which also fits into my first point (do I still want it after some time?)

Also totally agree with evaluating your previous spending and how that's worked for you. There's this thing in some hobbies where you feel like "oh, if I just had x thing, I'd be more successful/creative/whatever." My experience is that there are certain classes of expense where that's just not true (that vary depending on who you are, what you're into, and how into it you are). For me it's musical instruments -- I aspire to be good at playing music, but I'm just not that good, and buying another guitar/pedal/controller/piece of software is not going to fix the underlying issue that I'd need to put more energy into practicing with the kit I have now. Whenever I'm tempted by a shiny thing, I try to remember "well, you think the shiny thing will have x effect, but the last time you splurged on a shiny thing, it didn't, and now it's sitting here not getting used and you should really sell it.."
posted by Alterscape at 8:21 AM on January 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

This answer is probably somewhat outdated, but when I realized (back in my mid-20s) that I was wasting a stupid amount of money on lunches at work I did the same thing my dad did when he quit smoking and started putting the physical money I would have spent on lunches in a jar and watched it pile up pretty quickly (as he did for smokes). Of course these days you could just transfer the money into a separate account or use an app or something, but actually seeing all that money I would have pissed away on Subway or whatever right in front of my eyes was a powerful motivator to keep on making the pile bigger. Once I'd broken the habit more or less for good (I still brown-bag it 90-95% of the time at work) I did what my dad did and rewarded myself with a significant purchase (a new turntable in my case, golf clubs and a ring for my mom in his), then put the rest of the money from the jar into a real bank.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:43 AM on January 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

Counter to the advice to automate your savings, I actually trained myself to feel the little jolt of stress relief/satisfaction that I got from clicking "buy now" when I click "transfer" to move money from checking into savings in my banking app. It's like I bought myself something: more money!

Literally, when you have the urge to shop, log into your bank, and move whatever amount you can afford physically into a savings account. Once those savings numbers start to really pile up, it feels fantastic.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:55 AM on January 13, 2023 [5 favorites]

I know it doesn't sound fun, but there are a *lot* of people (myself included, for a while), who get a lot of satsfaction out of obsessively budgeting with You Need A Budget in a way that might fill the same emotional holes as impulse spending does. There's a super active Facebook group called YNAB Fans that will show you what I mean...

Mint never really did the same thing for me, I think because it's more focused on monitoring rather than really actively moving money around within your budget.
posted by geegollygosh at 9:14 AM on January 13, 2023 [4 favorites]

You may want to visit "The Measure of a Plan" to see if it is up your alley or not. From the About page:

• This is a place for all things money: learning how to manage it, save it, grow it, and to generally feel confident about it.
• I firmly believe that anyone (and everyone) can take control of their money and take strides towards financial independence today — provided that they have access to the right education and the right tools.

posted by forthright at 11:14 AM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Maybe do some dreaming about something you want to save for that you get really excited about -- a trip, a car, a house -- and have a specific savings account for it. This could work well with We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese's advice above about the "spending" being into an account.

I'm adapting this from Ramit Sethi's guidance on developing a Rich Lich set of goals, which in our household we have found really useful as-of-late.
posted by chiefthe at 11:49 AM on January 13, 2023

This isn’t a childish question. There’s nothing more adult than dealing with this stuff.

It seems to me that finding an alternative way to relieve stress will be more effective than making budgeting enjoyable, though you should have a budget. It’s not like you’re going to check your budget every day and feel more relaxed.

Try to identity what it is about shopping that you find relaxing. Is it distraction, or escapism? Maybe play a video game. Is it the satisfaction of the hunt? I think some people use Pinterest in that way. You could also shop for items and then just not complete the transactions. Reading about topics that interest you deeply might do it, though there might be some inertia to overcome initially. You could also try exercise.
posted by Comet Bug at 2:34 PM on January 13, 2023

Agree with Comet Bug that addressing the source of the stress is also important. And with geegollygosh - YNAB can definitely scratch this itch for a while. It really is enjoyable to allocate those dollars to jobs.

What are you saving for? I didn't actually have any goals beyond a kind of nebulous "save more money", so the thing that worked for me - and which actually transformed my financial literacy and relationship with money for the better, forever - was using a ridiculously big and glamourous-sounding number, something that seemed wildly beyond my capacity but when I sat down to do the maths was just doable, over two years. Two years seemed like a long way away, but I wanted to pick a number that would motivate me, and when I sat down to work it out, realistically, that was how long it would take. Pick a number that feels outrageous and then work out just how much you'd have to save from each pay packet to get there. You might have to revise your original number or extend your timelines - don't set yourself up for failure by making the goal too extreme. Look at what would be realistic and possible but a little bit of a stretch. "OK, if I cut back on those impulse buys and a few other things, it might be just doable for me to save $X this year. Wow, really? I've never had that much spare cash in my life. Man, if I saved $X in 2023, I'd feel pretty darn good about myself." I cannot tell you what a motivator it is to have a ludicrously, impossibly ambitious goal that you know you can hit. It's also a tremendous stress reduction to know you have money in the bank if you need it.

If you enjoy colouring in or journalling, what about a tracker of your savings goals for you to colour in as you hit your targets? Or would you be motivated by shiny stickers? I know it sounds cheesey but it can be genuinely rewarding. You could make your own or there are HEAPS of templates and ideas online. Part of the challenge would be to spend as little $ as possible in making the tracker!

There can be an enjoyable challenge in doing a No Spend Month, either on your own or with friends. If a month seems too big, you could do a No Spend Day.

For the Vinted and Depop, could you make a bookmarks folder with a good title, something that works for you, something like "Delightful stuff for me to buy at the end of the month" and say to yourself, I'm totally going to buy this but I'm going to wait until the end of the month. Bookmark and close the tab. And when the end of the month comes around, sit down and look through those bookmarks and see if any of those things still hold their appeal. It might be that if you approach them during time that you've set aside deliberately rather than during a scrolling session, your other financial goals might be more front of mind. Also, if you're getting email updates from Vinted or Depop - unsubscribe.
posted by happyfrog at 3:26 PM on January 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

A few quick thoughts:

1) If you open a high-yield savings account, the more money you put in there, the more interest you make. It feels really good to know that every time I make a deposit, it increases the amount of interest I make each month.

2) If you have any anti-capitalist notions, saving money (instead of spending it to support our greedy corporate overlords) can feel like an act of rebellion, or at least a hearty eff you to the rich white dudes running our country. "Oh, you wanted me to take this $50 and buy something to make me feel pretty, since you've informed me that I don't meet the current beauty standards? SHOVE IT, I'm putting it in savings and you don't get a DIME. "

3) To echo a few folks above, you cannot IMAGINE how good it feels to have a chunk of money in savings, especially when you need to cover a large, unexpected expense. I just bought a house, and yesterday, an HVAC tech informed me that the person who installed my furnace 5 years ago made a pretty big mistake that was going to cost me nearly $2K. Knowing that I could easily cover that expense, and still have money left over for other crises, was incredible -- totally beats any temporary high I've ever gotten from shopping.

Good luck!
posted by leftover_scrabble_rack at 3:49 PM on January 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

Get several high yield savings accounts at banks that aren't where you do your checking and direct deposit a portion of your paycheck straight into them.

This is what I do, and I check them all the time to look at the balances. I love looking at the balances. It's not quite as fun as shopping, but I do get a lot of satisfaction out of looking at my money.

Saving with a goal to spend it and then spending it is also super fun. I hadn't bought any new furniture since I graduated college 20 years ago. I named one of my savings accounts "furniture," saved for a couple of years, and bought new furniture for my whole (tiny, studio) apartment. It was debt-free, stress-free, guilt-free spending. It was awesome.

there are a *lot* of people (myself included, for a while), who get a lot of satsfaction out of obsessively budgeting

I do this. I change the allocations on my savings accounts, calculate how long it will take to save a goal amount, change the allocations again, etc. Sometimes I put more money in the un-fun savings (emergency), and sometimes more goes into the fun savings (vacation!).
posted by Mavri at 4:14 PM on January 13, 2023

I have ADHD/autism/anxiety, just graduated from grad school, and am pretty broke if it wasn't for my parents sending me some money to deal with price gouging and job hunting. Buying small stuff and shopping addiction is very different under these circumstances.

I have Mint, and check it weekly, but I can't wrap my head against any other budgeting software because I just don't have that much to spend. What has helped me is finding friends and social networks who are down to do fun and low cost activities together, and to enjoy hobbies that have very little requirement for spending.

I also spend a lot of time researching the hobbies that do cost money, like skincare and fragrances, and really question my decision making process and make that as part of my enjoyment, it's actually been a very helpful exercise to learn how to be mindful and understand why and when I do spend, and it gives me greater insight and wisdom into my own habits and mental health, I find that very rewarding.

A part of me will probably work hard to maintain and relearn frugal habits but in a way that doesn't result in shame and self loathing, but it is nice to be able to have enough money to save for a sudden weekend trip. It makes saving and not spending worth it.
posted by yueliang at 2:28 PM on January 16, 2023

Reading this thread, I opened a no fee bank account to stash small savings into, packed a lunch for the office and transferred the $20 over instead. Money is fraught and I want to thank both the asker for being vulnerable and the thread staying kind and helpful.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:15 PM on January 17, 2023 [5 favorites]