2846: The Budget - The Ultimate Life Design Tool by Alacias Enger of My Sense With Cents on Financial Planning

[00:00:00] Überlass deine gesunde Ernährung und die Gains nicht nur deinem Bauchgefühl. Denn bei der Ernährung gaukelt uns unser innerer Schweinehund manchmal ganz schön was vor. Sag stattdessen Hallo zu deinem neuen Coach, Yasio. Yasio ist die meistgenutzte Ernährungs-App Europas, made in Germany. Egal ob Massephase oder ein bisschen Abnehmen. Tracke Kalorien, Proteine, Carbs, Fette, Bewegung und Intervallfasten. Und mit den Tasty-Rezepten bist du ready für deine Ziele. Let's go! Lade die Yasio-App jetzt herunter.

[00:00:30] This is Optimal Health Daily. The Budget. The Ultimate Life Design Tool by Alacias Enger of MySenseWithCents.com. And I'm Dr. Neal Malik. Hey there and welcome to another bonus Sunday episode where I share an article from one of the other podcasts in our network. Today's post comes from Optimal Finance Daily, where articles covering all types of information on personal finance are read to you every day. You can follow or subscribe to Optimal Finance Daily wherever you're hearing this.

[00:01:00] And with that, here's Diana with the post and commentary as we optimize your life. The Budget. The Ultimate Life Design Tool by Alacias Enger of MySenseWithCents.com.

[00:01:18] I've been recently considering the relationship between myself and the mind. For many years, the mind has been desperately clutching for control, like a new driver grips a steering wheel. It would yell, scream, and use fear to control my actions, believing that it was keeping me safe from harm. While I'm grateful, this control-seeking behavior wasn't at all necessary as my inner self has always been capable of steering the ship I call my life.

[00:01:46] I've spent years studying, meditating, practicing, and finally, it seems the mind in me has come to the understanding that it doesn't have to work so hard. It can relax a bit and know that we're always okay. Personal finance is generally the mind's game, and I can assure you that this mind of mine has been primed. It has trained endlessly as if preparing for the personal finance Olympics.

[00:02:12] I've memorized rules, strategies, account types, theories, orders of operation, and admittedly derive huge pleasure from the act of doing so. But it seems I've entered a space where the mind is beginning to enjoy sharing responsibilities with my inner self, and I feel as though it's inviting my inner self to play with it in the financial arena as well. One area where I see this coming up is in the budget.

[00:02:39] The mind has had the budget on lockdown for a long time, and I'm eternally grateful. This beautiful budget has allowed us to save a full 20% down payment for a gorgeous piece of New York real estate. We won't be touching our retirement accounts or emergency savings for it either, and we feel incredibly blessed. It seems that by the end of the summer, we should be in the process of moving. With the move comes a new budget to sort.

[00:03:07] We have ideas about what that will look like already. Though I can't help but feel you can't entirely know the details until you've started to experience them. These milestones and life transitions come with a tremendous opportunity to invite your inner self to the table. Certainly, the mind has its goals. Pay off the mortgage early, get teacher loan forgiveness sorted, pay off the rental, and it'll certainly get its way. Achieving financial goals is one form of joy,

[00:03:36] but there is more joy to be had in redeveloping a new budget. Of course, we'll return to our 50-30-20 budget and start by plotting our monthly bills into the categories of fixed and flexible expenses. Then we'll move on to goals. This will involve a bit of a dreaming conversation. We already contribute heavily to our retirement accounts and we'll be pensioners, but how quickly do we want to pay off this new mortgage?

[00:04:04] How much extra do we need to contribute to the mortgage from day one in order to meet that goal? We will have these same conversations with some of our other major goals. This is where the mind and the inner self meet. They're co-pilots. The inner self knows my heart, knows my joy. The mind is my chief strategist and gets to plot possible courses. They need to become in sync. And for couples, both individuals need to also become in sync.

[00:04:32] I have to be honest, I'm really excited to have that particular monthly money meeting. I'm going to create a fabulous spread and prepare to co-create the life we both want to be living. After we decide on our goals and understand how much of our income needs to go towards these things each month, we're going to automate them. This not only makes things easier in terms of items on the to-do list, but also energetically. We won't have to put so much energy into these goals,

[00:05:01] but rather just address them briefly at our money meeting and move on to the part of the budget that largely goes to designing our lives. There are a handful of actual bills that go into the flexible spending section of the budget, but its alternate name is freestyle spending. This section is theoretically 30% of your income when using the 50-30-20 budget and has the opportunity to be your inner being's playground. What are your values?

[00:05:28] What kind of life do you want to design for yourself? Do you want to take a photography class? A sip and paint? Learn the guitar? Study ballet? Do you want to massage this month? Take in a play or concert? Do you want to stash a little money for an upcoming vacation? There are no wrong answers. Designing your life should be one of the components of a healthy budget. Your budget isn't supposed to be a restriction.

[00:05:52] It should be a place where your mind and inner self conspire to design for you the best life possible in a manner that's sustainable now and in the future. Honestly, there's also a bit of identity in this. Sometimes when you're working towards a goal and it gets to become a long slog, you can start to feel like your whole identity is wrapped up in a combination of work and the goal. Sometimes it's a matter of staying the course for a short period of time until you can check off that goal and switch gears.

[00:06:23] Sometimes you may want to re-evaluate prior to meeting the goal. We for one have stayed the course, realizing we were so close to meeting our goal. I wouldn't change any of that. Though in reflection, I can see that I was beginning to feel as though working and saving were absorbing more of my sense of self than I prefer, which I fully intend to shake. Again, it's worth asking, who am I outside of this goal, outside of my job? What am I doing to support myself in being that person?

[00:06:53] How is my money supporting me in developing my life in the direction of the things I value? I've been thinking about these questions for some time and have fairly clear answers. If your answers are less clear, that's okay. Give yourself some grace. But do ask the questions. You owe it to yourself to step into who you are truly meant to be and live a life of joy in the process. You just listened to the post titled

[00:07:22] The Budget, the ultimate life design tool by Alasius Enger of mysensewithsense.com Ein Feierabendbier. Perfekt zum Abschalten. Ein Glas Wein. Gut fürs Herz. Aber was, wenn das nur Mythen sind? Die Wahrheit. Alkohol ist die gefährlichste Droge der Welt. Und wir feiern sie täglich. Warum ist Alkohol für Frauen so verlockend? Und so gefährlich? Wie beeinflusst die Alkoholindustrie unser Leben? Höchste Zeit, darüber zu sprechen.

[00:07:52] Dirty Little Secrets. Warum wir immer weiter trinken. Die Dokuserie jetzt exklusiv streamen in der ARD Mediathek. I love that Alasius is as enthusiastic about budgeting as I am. As John Maxwell said, a budget is telling your money where to go, rather than wondering where it went. It's all about awareness and intention. And I think it starts to get really fun the more milestones you reach on your path to financial freedom.

[00:08:20] In the beginning, budgeting can be challenging. But once you get the hang of it, it can feel effortless. And when you first start, you're likely throwing money at debt. But over time, you can reallocate that money towards saving for your dreams, like early retirement, or a house, or a sabbatical, or to fund that business you want to start.

[00:08:42] By engaging with some kind of budget, you're taking control of the situation and you're more able to keep track of your progress towards long-term goals. I think the reason I like budgeting is because I'm a pretty competitive person. And so I feel like I'm winning something when I come in under budget. So for example, I redid my budget when leaving my full-time job and allocated $400 per month to groceries.

[00:09:08] This was based on my actual spending over the last year when I was a bit more relaxed in my budget. And over the last three months, I've consistently come in $50 to $100 under budget, which gives me a great feeling of accomplishment. I also love the feeling of reassurance I get when I check in with my budget. While I have monthly goals and an average level of spending I track against each month, sometimes I overspend for a variety of reasons.

[00:09:38] But looking at it over longer time horizons is very comforting. So for example, my budget based on two years of actual spending, including all fixed and discretionary expenses, is about $3,000 per month. This is what I budgeted when I left my job in January and decided to live off my savings for a little bit. However, I just looked at all the money I've actually spent since January and it's only $2,200 per month on average.

[00:10:07] This felt like a huge win and has given me confidence that I can keep my expenses pretty low without disrupting my quality of life. That's a wrap for another Monday show. Have a great rest of your day and start to your week. And I'll be back tomorrow where your optimal life awaits. And I'll be back tomorrow. I'll be back tomorrow. 5. 2. 2. 3.