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this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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Frugal
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Discuss how to save money.
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This may or may not be relevant to you, but I found I had a much better time with a budget when I "honestly" budgeted for my fun stuff, instead of trying to say it was all completely unnecessary and cutting it out.
I had somehow gotten an idea that if you have to track money, you gotta be "disciplined" and cut ALL the fun stuff away so you live like a monk. So, inevitably, I'd get stressed, I'd do something fun to cope with the stress, and then I'd fall into a spiral of shame and blame.
When I was older, I learned that if I looked at my "natural" spending habits honestly...for example, I like to buy books, music, and tea, so when I splurge it's usually in one of those areas...and actually set aside some budget room for those, I'm less likely to go "over" my budget, and thus less likely to fall into a spiral of guilt and shame that makes me throw the entire budget out the window later on.