I’m not a one-way street with my finances. For years I have tried different methods to budget, from using different budgeting apps to writing my spending down on paper. I’ve tried multiple excel sheets from different financial gurus, that have helped in some ways but then confused me in others. Aside from my weekly, monthly, or biweekly budgeting tactics, I’ve excelled in some and failed in others. Needless to say, budgeting, or having a plan of where your money is going, is crucial to have any form of financial success. However, there are other methods that might work for you to budget your money but also have a hands-off approach to assist in giving you a sabbatical from over budgeting your life away.
A couple of months ago I found myself at work, on break just tweaking my weekly budget for the fifth time. At the time I was diligent with writing my weekly budget in a small budget book that put together in my iPhone notes before finalizing with pen and paper. However, this particular day was a reflection of how my overbudgeting from weeks prior had accumulated into a bad habit of overthinking my financial game plan. I overanalyzed to the point where I started to sabotage the very goals, that in the past put me in a significantly better financial situation. My overbudgeting became a fidget spinner for me. Where I thought it was therapeutic in the sense of putting a plan together for my financial life. However, my overthinking led me to jeopardize allowing my money to work for me.
In the midst of changing my budget on my phone, I began to break down emotionally. I felt like for years I had different financial goals that would jump-start my way to success. I had completed so many things, I got out of student loan and credit card debt totaling $14,000. I paid off my car loan after a car accident left me without anything left. So I paid off a 5-year car loan in 5 months, to feel the impact of being debt-free again. I had used and refined plan after plan to figure out how to accomplish these goals and it worked significantly for me. But here I was debt-free after two years of accomplishing this freedom and yet, I wasn’t happy. I was still using the same tactics of overbudgeting and obsessing over my finances with little to no goal in mind. So, I decided to take a two-week sabbatical from my finances.
Sabbatical, typically a word to refers to someone taking a period of time off from work. Whether a professor or a worker who has accumulated time and energy to a company that wants to reward them. For me, the sabbatical was never with my job. In fact, the benefits I received from my job were very minimal and if I wanted to take time off on my own, I’d have to either use sick days or leftover money from a yearly bonus. So this sabbatical was my personal way to take a sabbath from the excessive overbudgeting that left me drained, feeling like I was accomplishing little and unfocused on the things that really mattered to me. Even though I was paid weekly, I decided that I would automate EVERYTHING, that would normally need a physical budget attached.
I first had different accounts set up to make this financial sabbatical seamless.
- Set up Bank Accounts to Seperate Money – Setting up different bank accounts to seperate money allowed me to still have a goal in mind for my finances but at the same it jump started my ability to create a system to then take the money that I had and put them in the correct financial categories.
- Automate Everything – I not only automated transfers into the different bank account catagores that I made, but I also automated transfers back into my main bank account so that the correct funds would be there for my Roth IRA withdrawals and House Savings Withdrawals.
- Open a Second Savings Account for Rent – This was huge fore me. The moment I opened my second checking account for my rent was the moment that I decided that I’d not only automate my main checking account transfers into that account but I’d also automate my rent withdrawal from its seperate checking account. I made sure that the money that was being withdrawn directly from my checking account by putting the my rent checking account and routing number to avoid avoid excessive fees. I chose to put a little extra amount of money into the rent checking account, to ensure that when I was hands free with this checking account, I’d in tern be at peace that I wouldn’t over draft the account if my utilities were to go up.
- Sit Back Relax and Let Everything Do Its Work – I decided that once everything was set up, I wouldn’t even look in my checking account (which at the time I was not only over budgeting but looking at my bank account far too much, as if money grew every time I blinked). I decide to move all of my finance apps into the very far back of my phone. This way I wouldn’t even bother looking or seeing the apps to then look into my account. By accomplishing this automatic approach, I was able to put all of my wellness and proactive apps in front and ignore my finance apps.
If you’re feeling like you’ve over budgeted too much and that you need a break as well, remember, you are not alone. There are thousands of strategies and tactics out there that want your attention, money, and time. But at the end of the day not only will a break from overbudgeting help you in the long run but it will allow you to be more intentional with you’re life and consistent with the true goals you have for your future. If this idea is daunting for you, don’t worry. This wasn’t a complete overnight switch. I had gradually set up my finances to achieve this success over time. It helped a lot that I knew my numbers. I understanding where my money was going for expenses, investment goals, and savings goals. The possibility for a financial sabbatical is possible for you too. Just take the time to create your own automated system that works for you. And once it’s seamless, sit back relax and focus on the truly meaningful things in life. See how you will have more time to not only grow as a person but support, encourage and spend more time with others. You might even find a new money-making tactic for a second, third or fourth stream of income. The choice is yours, choose your growth over obsessive budgeting.
