When a treat becomes a habit

While I was in law school, I was stressed out. Law school is designed to be competitive – only one person can be top of the class and the jobs available to that person (or anyone in the top 10 seats) are limited and coveted. In addition, the reading, writing, and exams are unlike anything I had done before. It was hard. To “treat” myself, I would get regular manicures and pedicures, foot massages, meals out, and shoes and clothing. I felt like I deserved it for all my hard work.

 

I recently saw an article titled, “16 Ways to Reward Yourself Without Breaking Your Budget.” The article points out that rewarding oneself is self-care, and therefore, important. As the article shares, “these purchases are unlikely to wreak havoc on your finances or trigger a situation in which you can’t stop overspending.” But, when I look back on my law school days, and the accompanying spending patterns, my rewards were not occasional. They became habitual parts of my life, only requiring my level of treating myself to level-up. I was overspending, in part because of these habits.

 

When I embarked on this journey to transform my finances, these habitual treats were some of the first things to go. Acknowledging that they were “treats” was hard – I enjoyed these things. But when I calculated them against other things I could have instead, they were easy to let go of. For example, my twice a month pedicure/manicure habit was costing me upwards of $1,000 a year. Thinking about what I could spend my money on instead, excited me. It became an easy sacrifice.


Look at what you’re spending your money on. Are there any treats that have become habits? If you want to spend money on those things regularly, that’s okay! Just add it into your budget so you can visualize the tradeoffs. If you want to leave room for treats (as you should!), give yourself a “fun money” category – an undefined (but restrained) category that is intended to be used for whatever you want. Without this awareness, the risk of overspending on treats is easy to do.

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