A lot of people struggle with staying motivated when on a budget.
The most common reason I’ve found is that they’re looking at budgeting the wrong way.
You shouldn’t have to motivate yourself to stick to your budget.
You just need to recognize that you’re budgeting for a reason, and that reason is likely a good one that will make you happy!
It’s all about making an adjustment, not about depriving yourself.
So if you’ve been struggling to find happiness within your budget, here are some ways to get back on track.
Realize Budgets Aren’t Bad
Like I mentioned, I think budgets get a bad reputation because people immediately associate them with limits.
Budgets aren’t meant to be restrictive. They’re meant to be a tool to guide you to your financial goals.
Let me give you a simple example.
Lately, I’ve heard many of my friends say, “Aw, I wish I could go to X, but I can’t afford it!”
Now, maybe they truly can’t afford it and are barely making ends meet, but that’s not the case most of the time.
Instead, it’s a matter of priorities. They aren’t budgeting to afford whatever it is they want; they’re just spending carelessly and don’t have anything left at the end of the month.
Enter: a budget. Or a financial plan – name it whatever you want if that’s what it takes to stay motivated! By keeping track of your money and including savings in your budget, you’ll be well on your way to affording that new wardrobe, concert, or car.
A budget can feel restrictive because you may find that you have to give up certain items to be able to afford this, but…that’s the beauty of it. It forces you to prioritize, and you’ll at least be guaranteed to have some money leftover to spend as you wish.
More often than not, you’ll be in an overall better financial position than before you started budgeting. That’s motivating, isn’t it?
Forgive Yourself
This was the biggest issue for me, so I had to make a section for it. If you’re a perfectionist, or you’re trying really, really hard to stay on budget, you need to realize life often has other plans.
Please, don’t beat yourself up over it. Especially if it’s something you can’t control.
Maybe you went over your grocery budget by $20, $50, or $100 this month. Maybe you gave in to eating out one too many times. Or maybe a torrential downpour occurred and your car was flooded.
Either way, what happened happened, and you can’t change it, no matter how much you wish those numbers were different.
Let go. Seriously. Dwelling on how well you were doing just before this stupid thing happened! isn’t going to help you. You need to forgive yourself and come to terms with the fact that life will throw you curve balls.
In fact, I’d argue 99% of the time, people’s budgets don’t come out perfectly. Life isn’t perfect; why would your budget reflect otherwise?
Move Money Around
Okay, so what if your budget was busted, but only in a few areas? While you may feel like this is cheating, we’re trying to stay motivated, right? So this is a handy trick to use (and it’s not cheating).
Let’s say you did go over your grocery budget by $50, but you have money left in your gas and clothes budget for the month.
Take that leftover money from those two categories and “move” it to your grocery budget.
Hopefully, this evens things out a little. Most of the time, I found that I was only going over in a few select categories every month, and staying under (or on par) with other categories. As long as your total spending stays under or around what you originally budgeted, you’re good!
Quick tip: if you’re having to move money around constantly because you just can’t keep your spending down in one category, permanently adjust the numbers to give yourself breathing room. You might wish you could stick to $300 per month for groceries, but if it’s not happening, don’t force it. That won’t keep you motivated!
Look at Past Progress
When people budget, they’re doing it for the short-term. Budgets are typically by the month – you budget at the end of this month for next month’s spending.
That’s fine, but don’t forget to review past budgets. They can tell you a lot: you can review spending patterns, what went right, what went wrong, what you felt okay about, and what upset you.
But most of all, they can also show you your progress.
Maybe you haven’t noticed because so many months have passed by, but you’ve managed to cut down your restaurant spending by $200 since you started budgeting. That’s progress, and that deserves some recognition!
Switch Up Your Strategy
My last tip for staying motivated while on a budget is to experiment. Sticking with one budgeting method when there are so many to try, especially if it’s not working, is silly.
There is no right or wrong way to budget. You have to do what works for you. I know I say this a lot in the realm of personal finance, but sometimes, we need a reminder or “permission” to do things differently.
This is especially true for those of you with erratic income – freelancers, commission-based employees, or those who get paid once a month.
So if you’ve been struggling to budget the “traditional” way, why not try the 50-30-20 budget? Or a zero-sum budget? Or the “anti-budget” which doesn’t really have categories? Or maybe a cash-only budget?
Keep trying different methods until you find one you want to stick with, and don’t let anyone discourage you. As long as you’re keeping track of your money and aiming to spend less than you earn, while saving the difference, you’re on the right track!
______________________
In short, staying motivated while on a budget isn’t difficult as long as you have a healthy mindset about it. Don’t view your budget as an evil thing that’s trying to kick you down from enjoying life. Instead, view it as a tool that’s guiding you to where you want to go.
Do you or have you struggled to maintain motivation while on a budget? What did you do to fix that? Do you actively budget?
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You’re right but I know that I will have a love/hate relation with budget forever, I started to have one in 2012 and at the beginning I hated it because it seemed limiting and seems that shops had everything I want, now I like to see my progress, delete some bad spending habit and have period of shopping ban but also if sometimes I hate budget I know its importance….it helps me to chieve all my financial goals:D
I don’t exactly believe that traditional budgets are the answer for everyone. When I tried it, it didn’t work for me (for other reasons). Reviewing your progress and focusing on cutting out bad shopping habits is still great!
Completely agreed that it’s common to look at budgeting the wrong way. We use our budget to motivate ourselves as it’s usually focused around specific goals we want to reach. That gives us the freedom to spend as we want, but also in line with our goals as it gives us something tangible to shoot for.
Yes, it’s much easier to make sacrifices when you’re doing it for a goal you feel strongly about. It’s so much easier to say “no” when you know that money is going to go to better use!
You’ve hit the nail on the head for a lot of reasons we lose motivation with following a budget. We make an annual budget but do not budget on a monthly basis anymore (though it’s mostly implied from the annual budget). I think you have to find the approach that works for you and that you will actually follow. Once you get in the groove, it gets easier!
That’s interesting you set an annual budget, but not monthly. I’m glad it works for you! It’s nice to have a general guideline for your money, but some people get too lost in the details (me) for it to work effectively month-to-month.
Forgiving myself is something I’m so bad at! I tend to be an all-or-nothing type of person, so if I mess up my budget, I want to quit budgeting. A lot of times, we can’t control all of our expenses, so I’ve been practicing a more flexible budget where I “move money around” like you say. It helps to take some of the pressure off.
Yep, same here! It’s so bad. Even if I come $30 under for some categories (and under overall), I would only focus on my losses. I’m happy to hear you’re giving yourself some breathing room!
The thing to keep in mind is you are in control of the budget, it’s only limiting if you allow it to be. A budget helps you tell your money where to go, its up to you to prioritize what’s important.
Yes, shifting your mindset around to being in control is SO important! You can’t feel trapped by it, or it’s not going to work.
We actually don’t have a budget right now. The plan is to cut expenses as much as possible and put it towards our debt. That being said, it will be very important for us to develop a strict budget once we get closer to semi-retirement. Our new lifestyle will be very dependent on keeping our expenses at a set amount. Regardless, these are good tips for perseverance when it comes to money.
We are big believers in budgets too, we stay motivated by trying to ‘beat’ our budget. We always make sure to allocate generously. We start with what we expect something (Eg food shopping) to cost over a year, then we add like 10%) then we try to beat that amount as much as possible :)
Tristan
Great points! We have done some moving things around in our budget for sure. I’m a believer that if you don’t tell money where to go you will wonder where it went! Hence, the budget.
This was the motivator I needed. I have been really good about my budget for the last few months but have been starting to slip and feeling like a failure. It really is helpful to know that a lot of other people have that problem too. Now I just need to work on forgiving myself and focusing on the areas I did well in.
Thank you for your advice, it really gave me a boost!