How can I be financially responsible but still enjoy life?

For most, that’s a pretty unenjoyable experience. It’s stressful, right?

The reverse is also true. Financial security is enjoyable. Knowing you could easily fund a small emergency? Never having to worry about the bills getting paid? Watching your investments grow, knowing they will earn you money independently of your job? That’s pretty enjoyable.

Currently, you’re choosing to enjoy spending, but you could choose to enjoy saving and wealth-building. Are those things inherently less enjoyable? Or are you simply not practised at seeing those aspects of your financial life as enjoyable?

2. Get clear on why you’re saving

Saving money because you think you “should” in order to be “financially responsible” is an unmotivating reason to save. Feeling like we “should” do something places the motivation outside ourselves.

It’s an externally driven motivator. Where does the “should” come from? Some external sources – parents, society, culture, friends, school – have taught us that this is correct behaviour.

So, you’re not really doing it for you. You’re doing it for someone else. That will never be as motivating as having a compelling personal reason for saving money.

You have to get clear on why you’re saving. What would be exciting for you to save up for? What is a bigger ticket item you’ve always dreamt of, but maybe thought was unreachable?

Also think about what it would mean for you personally, to have more money in savings. How would it change your life? What stresses would disappear? What would it feel like to have an extra $10,000, $20,000, maybe even $50,000 in savings?

When you are focused on a meaningful goal, no one will need to convince you to save (not even yourself). You’ll do it because you want to.

3. Get more excited about being wealthy than looking wealthy

Often, big spenders give a lot of meaning to the lifestyle they’re able to purchase – a big home, branded clothing, fancy dinners become signals of status, success or fitting into a social group.

However, these things are poor measures of real wealth. You don’t have to look far to find stories about social media influencers whose flashy lifestyles were funded with debt.

Instead, you want to start caring more about being wealthy, than looking wealthy. There’s a difference between having money and having wealth, which you acquire by buying assets (i.e. investing). Real financial wealth isn’t measured by your lifestyle, it’s measured by your assets.

Your income allows you to spend today. You spend it, it’s gone, and now you need to earn more. But if you do it right, your assets generate money for you forever.

Assets are the goose that lays golden eggs. You can spend the earnings (dividends, rental income etc), but you still own the underlying asset, which will continue to grow and earn for you in the future.

So if you really want to enjoy spending money? Save up, invest, and create a source of income that never runs out, enabling you to spend money – guilt-free.

Paridhi Jain is founder of SkilledSmart, which helps adults learn to manage, save and invest money through financial education courses and classes.

Advice given in this article is general in nature and not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.

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