I would like to refine my budgeting rules and the biggest hurdle that I face is that I can essentially justify almost any purchase to myself. My rent, utilities, and grocery budgets are fine. I live in the cheapest place I can, with the lowest internet speed, and the most modest cell subscription service. I stick to $100/week on groceries and most weeks am a little under.
What I have a hard time with is...everything else. For instance, I needed a winter coat this year. The other day I saw a $375 Ralph Lauren coat marked to $70 in Marshalls and knew that I had to have a coat, so I bought it. I just got put on beta blockers and need to monitory my blood pressure, so I bought a cuff for $30. Neither of these things is something that I will purchase again for who knows how long. I don't like the idea of a "clothing" budget because I only buy them when I have to, and I don't like the idea of a "health" budget because I'm not going to avoid purchasing something for my health like medication or medical items.
Does anyone have any ideas for some rules that I could implement around different categories of spending, or if I even need to break things out into categories? I'm looking for something more broad, as I don't have the stamina and patience for zero-based budgeting. The best success I've had working toward a goal was paying off a $15,000 credit card bill. The one rule I had was that I put $500 per paycheck on the credit card as soon as I got paid, and it was paid off in 7.5 months. But the day-to-day stuff (now that I'm out of CC debt) still feels, for lack of a better word, wiggly to me.
October 05, 2021 at 10:10PM
