@Rosy: very deep! And yes, there is a different background: we started the fun money because DH liked fancier stuff, and I was routinely frustrated seeing things like $120 Oakleys come home when the drugstore had perfectly good ones for $10. As mspym said, I would have preferred to save the money; for me, budgeting was a game, where you set the targets, and then you tried to come in under them every month. So separate fun money allowances allowed him to buy his stupid stuff and me to save more than we officially budgeted for, making both of us happy.
But what I was responding to in Lifejoy’s post - and I see it some in yours as well - is the sense that the fun money must be spent - even when there is no particular “thing” that you want from it. And that seems bass-ackwards to me, where the joy comes from the fact of spending money, rather than using that money as a tool to get you something in particular that you value (be that a thing, or an experience, or fewer days of paid employment, or whatever). I mean, you guys have both talked about your jewelry fixations, but you both also sound like that jewelry isn’t really bringing you the happiness you used to get from it (and, Rosy, you have even suggested that it seems to be interfering with your larger savings goals). And yet you keep throwing money at it, almost automatically, because money is to be spent, and you can’t think of anything better to spend it on right now. And Rosy, now that you have kicked that habit, you seem to be running around trying to come up with other ideas that you can throw that money at, right? To me, that sounds a lot like it is really the act of spending that is driving you; the stuff you acquire is almost beside the point. And that is, in the end, self-defeating, and I think exactly the kind of thing that we are in this challenge to get away from.
Look, despite what my kids would tell you, I am not the death of all things fun and frivolous. I have absolutely no problems whatsoever spending money on frivolities - yes, it took a lot of time to learn than spending anything is ok, but I have seriously gone over to the dark side (really, you should see my car - it is unjustifiable under any possible circumstances). So I am not talking about living a constrained, deprived life - just about making sure you have the big priorities covered before the frivolity, and then spending the play money on things that bring you lasting happiness, vs. chasing the fast/cheap thrill of buying something because you can. If you want to give yourself fun money for a particular thing that you value - and if you need to keep it completely separate for your own accountability - that’s totally fine. But why rush to spend it every month if you don’t have a particular “thing” right now that is drawing you? Just let it sit there and build up (a/k/a “save” it 😉) in your separate fun money account so you will be in a position to buy an even bigger and better “thing” when you come across it later.
@Laura33 - extrapolating - recalculating - wirrrr - fizzz - exploding-imploding, foundation shaken:) This is a fundamental difference in approach.
Rejection remains my first response, but anytime you categorically reject something it means you are not willing to examine much less re-examine the issue. It is easy to say this will not work for me, but maybe it would - if I were to give it a chance.
This July is the end of an extreme budget that I imposed upon myself for an entire year. It's been hell, riddled with anxiety and of course, sh$t kept happening incl. a meltdown in April.
I'm still in shock that I pulled this off, successfully. Within that year, I bought two cars, left my remaining $10K CD intact, saved $10K towards my stash goal and saved another $10K for my bucket list trip in July.
So, yeah, my first reaction is I really need that fun money and I want to spend it on something - anything, I want to throw it up into the air and be showered in it:)
Seriously, in my case, this $250 for fun money for all intents and purposes didn't really exist during July 2017 to July 2018. Basically, I rotated some slush fund money, but sometimes even that was reduced to $100 and one time only $20 - yup, it got that tight. I could have asked Mr. R. to transfer $1-2K into my account, but I didn't, mostly because I was afraid that would cause me to spend even more money on my jewelry obsession (which is paid off monthly at 0% interest - a sly way of hiding it from myself, because it became a credit card budget item).
The jewelry will be paid off on auto-pay by the time I return from my trip in late Sep, it will be the first time that I actually will have "fun money" available to spend - if I want.
I've decided to let the "fun money" sit - no new allocations except, I will use some of it to slowly fill all the slush funds that I've depleted over the last 12 months. I might drop some into my one remaining savings goal or look into investing it (next year) - it will give me an incentive to learn more about finance and money.
By then it will be December and I'll have a good start for 2019.
Thinking about the financial implications of my gazingus pin - it certainly was destructive behavior, self-sabotage if you will. It caused me a great deal of unnecessary anxiety, although it stopped short of actually affecting my savings goals.
The $ impact was not that great, approx $600 this year - nothing compared to what I've spent in the past.