Why We’re Not Designed to Follow Budgets–There’s More to Life

image source: Rubyran via flickr

In many ways, following a budget is like adhering to a portion controlled diet. In both cases, you create elaborate plans to limit unhealthy consumption. If you mess up, as you are likely to do, you can compensate the next day or week by working harder or cutting back in other places.

We can’t accept failure, and that’s why we try harder the next time. But perhaps we’re creating a vicious cycle. Perhaps the real reason we fail is simply that we’re not designed to have such self-control. When I see delicious food, I can’t resist the smells and the taste and I simply stuff myself. In fact, just looking at that cheesecake picture is making me hungry.

It might seem pessimistic to give up on self-control, but it’s not. I don’t think we’re doomed to be overweight and in debt. I just think that to be successful, our plans should not rely primarily on self-control.

What’s the answer? Rather than trying to control our actions against temptation, we should try to shape our desires so we feel happy with things we can do. Or as Sheryl Crow puts it, it’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.

This is why a budget might be pushing you in the wrong path. In fact, following too strict of a budget is likely to leave you unhappy. An alternate path to happiness comes from wanting things so affordable that you don’t even need a budget.

That’s the path I want to explore today, and I came across an amazing story recently about it.

Budgets might leave you unhappy

S. Shugars at Savingadvice.com writes an excellent article on why you might not want a budget.

Central to the argument is a personal tale of how years of budgeting came to a crash:

I used to be a budget master. I had information down to the penny of where all my spending went. I tracked every purchase and made sure I saved my 15% for years. The problem is that the process of budgeting in itself is being a slave to your finances. It meant that I had to delay gratification and plan to get the things that were on my wish list. This all appeared to be wonderful except those things on the wish list were not things that I really wanted — they were things that I thought I wanted.

Then one day I had a heart attack [my emphasis].

This shocking experience made Shugars realize that wish lists and budgets push one in the wrong direction.

In a sense, budgets justify unhealthy lifestyles by obscuring the real costs. Yes, you may have managed to budget for a luxury car so you look like high society, but in doing so what tradeoffs did you make? Did you miss out on family or friend time? Did you have to give up other things you really wanted?

These are questions I imagine Shugars, or anyone, would ask themselves upon reflection in a hospital room.

The alternative: sustainable spending

I’m not telling anyone to give up rich activities or rich foods. That’s entirely an individual choice.

But I do want to advertise there is another way of life. Rather than controlling how much you enjoy rich things, just seek out healthy habits and enjoy them as much as you want. This doesn’t require any self control, and these activities don’t cost a lot of money.

As explained by Shugars:

What I have found is that I really need very little and most of the things that make me happy don’t come with a price tag. I don’t have to buy things in search of happiness because I’ve already found it and it comes mainly from the simple things in life: my family, taking walks and taking the time to talk with others.

I no longer budget. There is no need to because I really don’t buy much these days. Everything that I want always costs far less than I make each month because there is hardly anything I want or need. What I have learned is when you understand what it is that is most important, a lot of those expenses that you are always trying so hard to pay will suddenly disappear.

Three practical suggestions

I too don’t budget, but perhaps I’m not at the stage of Shugars were I can avoid collecting data. I still enjoy methods to make sure I stay on track. Here are my three suggestions in that regard.

First, write your goals and really consider what you want. Think about what your money is buying you. When you find the real cause of your happiness, it might not be related to spending at all. I find I’m most happy when I connect to people by teaching, learning, or writing. I don’t need to spend a lot of money beyond basic equipment to do this.

Second, remove temptation from the start. If you don’t want to eat cheesecake on your diet, you would simply not buy it. Similarly, if you don’t want to spend money, stash it directly from your paycheck.

And third, keep track of expenses so you stay on track. Tracking your money is very different from budgeting. It is an activity about recording what you’ve done, not about projecting what you want to do.

Like Shugars points out, the best things in life are free. If you accept that, then what are you budgeting for?