We don’t usually think about the idea of finding joy when making financial decisions. For many of us, it’s just budgeting apps and spreadsheets, but the reality is that you can truly find a lot of joy if you make the right financial decisions. It’s just a question of knowing what to do.
Here’s some of our advice:
Reframe your budget as permission to spend
One of the best decisions that you can make is to reframe your budget as a type of permission to spend. Rather than seeing your budget as a limitation of what you can do, you can look at it as an opportunity to spend the money that you have available for that particular month. What’s nice about this approach is that it eliminates anxiety around purchases. You’re only buying up to what you have permission to spend.
Let compound interest do the heavy lifting
Once compound interest starts to take hold and increases the size of your portfolio, it can have a massive impact on how wealthy you become. The process starts very slowly, but after a while it gets faster and faster. Eventually, you’ll be amazed at the amount of money that you’re able to bring in passively, letting compound do the heavy lifting. That means waiting a lot of time and also being smart with your investments. You should use a depreciation calculator if you own property or a proper investment fund if you’re putting your money into stocks.
Where the power of compound interest kicks in depends on your current financial status, but it usually happens to most people when the interest on their portfolio exceeds their annual income.
Embrace the magic of automation
You can also take some time to embrace the magic of automation. Decision fatigue can really slow you down, especially if you have to manually transfer money out of your savings accounts every payday. Avoiding this is good advice. Rather than relying on willpower, you’re just letting a machine do it all for you in the background. When this happens, you are essentially free, and you also get the delight of logging into your savings account months later and seeing all the money that you’ve saved.
Gamify your savings milestones
If you’re the sort of person who likes games, you could also look into gamifying your savings milestones. Gamifying them turns them from something abstract into a real challenge that you can go out into the world and enjoy. You’re trying to build up as much money as quickly as you can, which can actually be a lot of fun in its own way. While the process of obtaining it might be difficult, it’s interesting to see how the financial landscapes work and what savings options are available to you.
Appreciate what you have
Finally, it makes sense to simply appreciate what you have. If you can look at what you already have as a blessing, then anything you add to it is just an optional extra that you can have some fun trying to obtain. It doesn’t have to be part of your life.