We live in a culture that increasingly makes you feel guilty if you are not spending half your time at work. Yet have you ever stopped to think, whether working too hard actually makes you spend money you could have otherwise saved?
Ever been in a situation where you have been at it from literally from dawn to dusk. So when we get home, we are so conked out that the last thing we want to do is cook. So hey, dial in your favourite take-away. Or your fridge and larder is empty as you had no time to stop at your supermarket to replenish your stocks. So hey, dial in your favourite take-away. Or that you cannot afford to do your own lunch as you have to be early to finish that memo you should have finished two days ago despite that your are working 10 hours a day. So, hey, a quick run to a nearby take away to grab a sandwich to take back to your office to eat as you get working again!
Your new year resolution was to get yourself fit. So in the first of January you bought yourself an one year discounted membership. Here we are in September, you just realise that you have been working so flat out that you only went twice to gym so far. Or the film streaming, newspapers and all other interest and hobby related subscriptions that your purchased to while your time as you kick off your shoes and help yourself to a lovely glass of wine which you intend to go through a you relax after a hard day of work – but which you never manage to do as you are normally so knackered that you doze off more times than not.
There’s no time to plan the future because today you are running on empty, and your money continues to leak down the drain without even knowing where it goes.
Sounds familiar? If any of these situations feels close to home, you’re not alone. Life today feels fast, and the demands on our time and energy are many and varied. And they all affect our financial wellbeing on a conscious and subconscious level.
It’s a horrible cycle – we feel burnt out so we overspend, we overspend so we feel stressed, we feel stressed so we get more burned out. There’s a lot to be done to work through the burnout, but let’s start by taking care of managing our money.
We do not say that it is easy. The most important thing is to take a hard look at your life. If you know that you spend most of your time working and coming home late give a good look at all the subscriptions you enrolled in. See which ones you do actually use, and remove all the ones that have accumulated over time and for which the monthly subscription still continues to be paid month after month.
If you come across a new Internet portal or resource do not jump into an open subscription because this seem attractive to you. Go for a monthly subscription, and during that month take count of how many times you accessed the site. If you find that you have been too busy that other than the first couple days after you subscribed you hardly used it – do renew; and make sure it does not automatically renew itself.
Seem thing if you decide to subscribe to a gym. Do not go for the full year subscription, no matter how discounted it may be. Take out a month’s subscript or pay on a use basis. Only take a long term subscription if you find that you have truly settled in a gym routine.
Yet – we do not work hard to dismiss any thought of spending any money on yourself because you feel that you neither have the time nor the energy to enjoy them. It is important that you have ‘your feel good budget’ to spend on things you truly enjoy: just make sure you get all the value you should get from them