With the immense stress that comes with balancing academics, a social life, a job for some and extracurricular activities for others, budgeting may be the last thing on your mind. However, you are already doing it without even realizing it.
Whether you get rationed a weekly allowance by your parents or are working part-time, money is something that comes up in everyone’s daily life. Learning how to best manage your money now will provide you with a beneficial skill set for the rest of your life.
The idea of budgeting can seem overwhelming: Where do I even start?
Well, you can begin by asking your peers. Of course, you will adopt your own set of financial beliefs and practices as you continue to learn. However, the inspiration can kickstart the process.
Next, ask your parents for advice or seek outside resources such as self-help books or podcasts. These will introduce you to the financial world and can help you build healthy habits.
But if you’re anything like me, asking your parents for advice is not really an option. Despite my dad’s steady job for the past couple of decades, he is still an extreme saver. While it works for him, saving paper plates after using them multiple times and taking straws from restaurants is way too extreme for me.
The extreme of any given spectrum is usually bad news.
Let’s take the opposite of my dad: the extreme spender. This person has trouble holding on to money, and it’s usually because they have not mapped out their priorities. They get a thrill off of making a small purchase — usually one that will not last — and because it is small, they do it again.
Being a big spender is a hard habit to break because it is a cycle. One stupid purchase leads to another and clutter collects, but, hey, look at all of this stuff I got.
The bottom line is neither of these lifestyles promotes a healthy relationship with money.
Being too scared to spoil yourself every once in a while can lead to a burnout mentality. You save and save your money — not even knowing what for — while seeing the people around you enjoying themselves. Sometimes, this can lead to an impulse buy, which may seem like an investment to some, but in reality, it just manifests in a $72 “anti-stress cream.”
These purchases seem like a good idea at the time, but then they sit at the bottom of my drawer and start collecting dust after a week of purchasing them.
The hardest part of budgeting is knowing where you fall on the spectrum, categorizing how you spend your money — which mobile apps can help with — and changing your relationship with money.
After you start making a conscious effort to start monitoring your habits — whether with the assistance of friends and family, self-help books or just yourself — you will be able to recognize patterns of behavior.
This is the first step in creating a game plan and eventually ditching these unhealthy habits for a more sustainable lifestyle. For example, when I log into my Chase mobile app, and I open up the setting that splits your monthly spending into categories, I see that 99 percent of my spending money goes to food.
As a college student, this is not surprising. That being said, it is not an excuse.
Keeping in mind that I needed to cut down on food expenses, I began limiting the number of times per week I ate out. I allowed myself one nice dinner a week, and one take-out meal, such as sweetgreen or Life Alive.
The two categories I have brought up — skincare and food — are from personal experience. I tend to overspend on the two because I prioritize them. Acknowledging this has helped me make an active change.
Sitting down with yourself and coming up with a list of priorities is a good way to hold yourself accountable and redirect your cash flow toward things that will make you the happiest in the long run.
