Tag: health

Mandatory disclaimer: I am writing this post from the perspective of a middle-class person addressing other middle-class people. I do not wish to imply that Anyone Can Do These Things; only people with a certain ration of Income to Needs can solve problems like this by budgeting. If your reaction to this post is “but I can’t budget my way out of poverty,” then do not fret: this post is not at or about you. If your reaction to this post is “but not EVERYONE can budget their way out of poverty,” then I will reiterate the intended audience for this post: Middle-class people. Not Everyone. Thank you for understanding!

A few weeks ago, I read a secondary source (Reddit post about an article, haha!) that discussed the question of “Is budget culture as harmful as diet culture?”

Seeing this concerned me, because I’m well aware of (and pretty vocal about!) how damaging diet culture is, and how the whole weight loss scheme system is destroying generations of people’s bodies and minds. And at the same time, I’m a huge proponent of being conscious of your budget, making sure you’re spending carefully, and things of that nature. So my immediate concern was: am I perpetuating a harmful shame culture by being so enthusiastic about budgeting?

But today, I had a small analogy-epiphany about it. In my view, budgeting isn’t the idea of dieting that says consuming is sinful, taking up space is sinful, your natural inclinations are evil and must be punished, good things must be “earned” and aren’t there to simply be enjoyed.

Rather, I think that budgeting is much closer to the idea that I subscribe to re: bodies and food and exercise. Namely: you exist and you do things. Eating food lets you do things, food is fuel, you need food in order to let your body do all this amazing stuff. It’s not a perfect philosophy; for example, it doesn’t address the frequent moralizing about disability or the ableism that can permeate even fat-positive spaces. But in general, I’ve found it the best way for me to conceptualize food and exercise and weight. Having A Body is the thing that lets me Do Stuff. That’s awesome.

In a similar fashion, having a budget (knowing what you are spending money on, and making sure that you are spending money on what you want to spend money on) is Having A Finance that lets you Do Stuff.

In your life, you undoubtedly have goals. Are you hoping to purchase a house? Send your children to college without the crippling burden of student debt? Pay off your own debts? Save for your retirement? Having a budget lets you actively choose those long-term goals in addition to living your day-to-day life now. (And unlike calories, dollars really are a zero sum game: dollars in, dollars out. Finance is binary like that in a way that Bodies are not.)

My personal view is that the best first step is to look at your Descriptive Budget: what am I currently spending money on? How do those expenses stack up against my total household income? How many of those expenses are recurring (mortgage) or periodic (car insurance)? And is my income biweekly, monthly, quarterly, or irregular (e.g. book advance)? Taking all of those things into account for the Descriptive Budget will help you formulate a Prescriptive Budget if you find you are over-spending on some things (like travel, or cute enamel pins on Etsy, or whatever).

To bring the analogy back around full circle: The actual, harmful, diet-culture-equivalent thing for Finance would be something akin to the Prosperity Gospel: the idea that you are only worthy if your income, or net worth, or whatever is above a certain level. That is the unhealthy thinking, in the world of personal finance.

But the healthy thing – the thing I’m advocating for, in all of my “being the finance nerd” in my social circles, is this: We should focus on the Stuff We Want To Do (save for future? go on trips to broaden our horizons?), and then take actions so that we can accomplish that Stuff.

Don’t look at the number on the scale. Don’t look at the total net worth in your spreadsheet. Look at what you’re able to do, look at what you want to do, and remember those long-term goals when you are making short-term spending decisions!