How To Spend Money And Still Keep Up With Your Savings Goals This Summer
With summertime comes more and more opportunities to spend money — just ask my bank account. Whether it's the many, many chances to grab a glass of rosé with the girls, all those swimsuits you want for your next summer vacation, or even just the gas it costs to get to a backyard BBQ...it all starts to add up, and fast. But that's not necessarily a bad thing when handled correctly and with care!
Believe it or not, Tori Dunlap (Her First 100k founder and NYT bestselling author of Financial Feminist), actually wants you to spend your money! She just wants you to have a plan for how you spend it. She said, "When it comes to mindful summer spending, we don't want to hate our lives, but we also want to have something to show for it at the end of the summer."
What does that mean in practice? Here are Dunlap's tips for how you can start to spend money mindfully now so you're set up for success come summer's end.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska
Automate Your Savings
As your opportunities to spend money accrue more, your savings account has the potential to accrue less. You don't want all your finance goals to fly out the window, but clearly it's even more difficult to save your funds the longer the sun stays out.
Luckily, Dunlap has the solution for you: automating your savings. She suggests setting up a routine automatic transfer from your checking account to your savings account. This should help ensure that you're not missing out on your savings goals while you're opting in to all the summer fun!
Photo by Cora Pursley/Dupe
Set (And Follow) Your Value Categories
Once you're sure your savings are automated and in order, the fun spending can come into play. Dunlap is a huge proponent of living your life to the fullest, even if that means spending money, but she wants to ensure you're "spending mindfully on the things you actually love."
In her book, Financial Feminist, Dunlap outlines the idea of "value categories" AKA the types of things you spend money on that bring you "the most joy." She suggests picking your top three categories — for her those are travel, going out to eat, and plants — and sticking to them to the best of your ability when it comes to your discretionary funds (money not set aside for bills).
After setting your top three value categories, that doesn't mean you have to only spend money there. It just means you want to spend the majority of your "fun" money there because you know the payoff is the best. So, if you pick manicures, daily lattes, and shoes as your categories, those are the three things that add the most to your life when you buy them — however, you can still buy that tank top you saw on sale if it feels like the right move!
Basically, this concept is all about balancing fun and frugality without all the added guilt other financial experts tend to toss into the mix. Yay!
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Header image via Karolina Grabowska
