Reviewing Your Spending Can Bring Up Unexpected, But Useful Feelings
Earlier this week, I announced that I was going to be publicly tracking my expenses for the next one month. A few days in, and I would like to share what it has been like.
The daily expense tracking was no big deal at all. It’s about logging what I spend, and I did it pretty mindlessly on an Excel sheet (which I am yet to make all fancy). Then last evening, I sat down to do an analysis of my expenditure. Now that bit did not feel great at all!
In the past, my attempts at expense tracking were oriented towards a different goal: To ascertain how much money I spend in the different budget lines, so that I can update my budget. Basically, to make sure that my budget was not a fantasy, but was a reflection of my actual spending habits. As soon as that was done, I would stop (or fall behind), until the next year when I would do it again for budget reviewing purposes.
This time, I was being made to face my spending while the memories are fresh.
“Remember those fries from Snack Attack you bought on Tuesday? What feelings do they evoke now? Are they still as satisfying?”
This weekly process was evoking some unpleasant feelings within me. I was kind of judging myself for my one category of spending which you will see below. Sam Beckbessinger of “Manage Your Money Like A F*cking Grown Up” recommends facing our feelings when looking at the results of our expense tracking. When you look at the various categories you spent money on, which categories make you sad or fill you with regret?
What are the categories of spending that don’t add any joy to your life, where you think, eh, I guess I need that or just feel a stew of guilt and shame? Mark these red.
What are the categories that maky you happy that have really added joy and meaning to your life? Make them green.
Later, when you are thinking about where to cut your spending, you know where to start. Red categories go first – Manage Your Money Like A F*cking Grown Up.
I know you’re still scrolling to see what I spent money on this week, so here goes:
Looking at this, I was ok with all the categories, but “Eating out”. This is made up of my Snack Attack adventure, and a pizza run we made on Thursday night because I was “coughing and did not feel like eating Ugali”. The issue is not the quantum of the expense, but the fact that at the end of the week, I do not have residual positive feelings about the expense. As I review this, I cannot help but realise that it would have been more valuable to schedule a dinner or lunch date with the family (or with a friend), instead of buying food on an impulse. The other thing I realised is that in my mental accounting, I did not log this as buying lunch (which I am trying to cut down on). In the first instance it was a snack, and the second, it was dinner so it did not really count – these are the lies we tell ourselves.
As we go to the weekend, I will be looking carefully at my spending, and monitoring what my spending triggers are. Outside of regular purchases, what triggers me to pick up the extras?
This post and subsequent posts on this series are sponsored by Maisha Ni M-Pesa Tu, a promotion by Safaricom, where Safaricom is looking to give away 7 apartments, over Sh110 million worth in daily and weekly cash prizes, and over Sh100 million worth of data, SMS and airtime prizes to M-Pesa users. What I like about this promotion is that I do not need to do anything to stand a chance to win, other than use M-Pesa for transactions, as usual. Follow the conversations on Twitter using the hashtag #MaishaNiMpesaTu. At the time of posting this, Safaricom had just given out the 5th apartment to Mzee Juma Saidi and his family.
