I hear people all the time say that budgeting their money tightly, and building their savings by being frugal and thrifty is just not worth it because they either don't have time or they don't have the energy to make home-made meals all the time, be creative when it comes to family outings or any other thing that takes effort to be frugal.
I know where you are coming from!!!
My husband and I always wanted to be able to be self reliant, self sufficient and self sustaining people that didn't have to rely on others to help us out. We knew we wanted to build a nice comfortable savings and be able to afford our own house with a nice large down payment so we wouldn't have to pay a huge monthly mortgage. We also knew that we wanted to do all those things because it would teach our children to be confident independent members of society later on in their lives.
But then, burn out hit!
More often than not, people get so excited about pulling themselves out of debt or building that nice savings or even something as simple as eating better, that they jump in head first before they even look at how deep the water is! They take on too much to fast...
And you know what happened to the little girl who tried too much too fast... She died! (OK, I'm sorry about the FRIENDS quote/reference... but I had too)
But in all reality, they do end up taking on way too much to handle. Even if you keep it up for a month or two, they eventually reach a burn out. Their energies are spent, time is past, and it seems as if the rewards were not worth the effort.
At this point, the bad thing happens... People quit and go back to the way they did things before and the savings, or the weight loss, or whatever the goal was, end up going back to square one.
So what's to be done?
One thing I've found helpful is to always plan for that laziness. Give yourself permission to sway from the routine. If you are dieting, give yourself one day a week to eat whatever you want. If it is a budget and being frugal or just trying to build your savings, allow in your budget even a one day a month eat-out plan. Or frozen food plan for a couple of days. This has helped us tremendously to stay on top of things on not burn out.
We just changed our finances to a cash only system. (It's more of a hybrid system that works for us best, I think I'll post more about that down the road once we've done it for a while and ironed out all the kinks.) And in that very small budget, we have a section for "entertainment". For our family that is a big thing to have. Now that entertainment budget is for everything that is not a necessity: movie theater, eating out, candy from the store, DVD rentals and purchases, books, magazines, family outings etc.
The thing I've noticed that is AMAZING about having cash only for our entertainment is that it is not that much, but because it is cash, it's so much easier to know exactly how much we have left for the month. If there is something big we want to do, we know we won't be able to get a pizza Saturday. OR if there isn't anything at all we are planning on for the month, it makes us think twice before we decide on that pizza, and more often than not, we end up not getting after all because we know we only have X amount left and know how bad it would hurt if something came up that month later down the road that we would have to pass on because of that $5-$10 fast food.
But, we've planned for the lazy days (which I am a big fan of) so I know that if I need one, I can have one and that it won't be the end of the world. And, because we have allowed for it, it also means that when I have a lazy day, I'm not a failure as a mother and wife.
So whenever you are planning anything life-changing, be it a budget, a diet change or even having a baby, PLEASE remember to plan and accept the fact that you are human! Allow for that fact and you'll be much better off in the end.
