How can I be financially responsible but still enjoy life?

I struggle to save money consistently, even though I earn more than $100,000 per year. I make enough to save, but can’t maintain discipline. Eventually, I splurge on a holiday, new clothes – something that makes me feel good. I want to be financially responsible, but I also want to enjoy my life. How do I do both?

There’s a line here that I hear a lot, which is really key: “I want to enjoy my life.”

I’ve helped a lot of “overspenders” learn how to save better, and fairly consistently I’ve noticed that they often have a belief that goes something like this: “Spending money freely is enjoyable, and having to stop myself from spending to save is restrictive and unenjoyable.”

If saving money feels like something to ignore, then changing that perspective should be your first objective.Credit: Simon Letch

If this is your mindset, you will struggle to sustainably curb your spending and save because at the core, you don’t want to save. You want to spend, and saving is something you just feel like you have to do, so you try to force yourself once in a while.

Until saving money becomes something you want to do (not just because you feel like you have to, or should), you’ll have a hard time maintaining any kind of savings plan. How do you make that shift?

1. Redefine enjoyment

Commonly, we think of the lifestyle that money can buy us, as enjoyable – the holidays, experiences, clothes etc. But this is a narrow view of enjoyment.

Think about all the ways that your current financial life doesn’t feel very enjoyable. If you are in debt, how does that feel? If you’re living pay to pay, how does that feel? If you don’t have enough to cover emergencies, how does that feel?

You’re not really saving money for you. You’re doing it for someone else.

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 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” 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 (ie 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 geese that lay 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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