Hear me out on this one: wasting money is good. At least it can be if you do it right. The trick is to know how much to waste, what to waste it on, and how often to waste it.
Most saving and budgeting advice centres around a core idea: spend less money, and save more. And that advice is mostly right. You canât save money if youâre spending too much of it, and the less you spend, the more you can save.
But saving doesnât happen in a vacuum, and humans arenât cold money-counting machines. Weâre living beings with feelings and desires. Being constantly disciplined about something is exhausting and more likely to lead to burn-out, which in turn leads us to give up on our financial goals.
But a certain amount of discipline is also important: if we donât force ourselves to save at all, we wonât get anywhere either.
The ideal situation would be a sort of release valve: when the pressure of saving becomes too much, it would let us release a little bit of steam. And thatâs exactly what the frivolous pocket is meant to do.
The frivolous pocket works like this: every month when your paycheck comes in and you put money into your savings, take a little extra, and put it into a separate pocket. Make sure you donât put in so much that whatâs left canât cover your monthly expenses.
This pocket will be your escape valve. If you have purchases you know you donât need to be spending money on, youâll buy them using money from this pocket. Think of it like an allowance, if you had one as a kid. Back then, if you were lucky, you didnât have to worry about clothing and feeding yourself. Your allowance was purely there for your enjoyment. And thatâs exactly how you should treat this pocket.
How you decide to use this pocket beyond that is up to you. Like an allowance you might find you get more enjoyment out of letting it grow a little and then buying something large. You might also discover youâd rather spend it on small things constantly, getting a little boost of serotonin without having to worry about your finances.
Everything we do, from brushing our teeth to figuring out what brand of pasta to buy, requires mental effort. The more discipline a task requires, the bigger the effort. Thatâs the reason we feel exhausted after a long at work even if we didnât do much physical activity. Our brains only have so much energy, and every task we add takes up some of that. Even something passive, like not spending, requires energy, because weâre constantly keeping ourselves in check. Itâs like balancing on a tightrope: we have to take extra care with every step, in order to not fall off.
Like with physical activity, occasional periods of rest let our brains relax and replenish our store of mental energy. When your activity is not spending, having a way to safely spend sometimes lets our brains relax, even if just for a bit. That way, we can stay disciplined for longer.
Like everything we do in life, this idea is meant to help. But donât be too hard on yourself if you make missteps. Count your successes, no matter how small, and let them inspire you to keep going. Thereâs no competition, only you and your happiness.