When money’s tight, it’s only natural that some things might slip through the cracks to make room in your budget for the essentials. However, there are certain things in your life that might be more essential than you originally thought when you consider things like your mental and emotional health or well being.
To feel like you’re truly your best self, you need to find time in your day and in your budget to take care of more than just your basic needs. To help you accomplish this, even when working within a tight budget, here are three tips for budgeting money for self-care.
Start By Practicing Financial Self-Care
Especially when you’re running low on money or are having to work within a very limited budget, it can be easy to view money as the enemy. However, with this mindset, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever be able to think 100 percent clearly about your financial situation.
To help with this, Stacey Rapacon, a contributor to U.S. News and World Report, shares that you should first learn how to practice financial self-care. What this means is that you use your money to create balance in your life. If you’re too strict with yourself and your budget, you’ll never feel empowered by your finances. Even when things are looking bleak, you can choose to practice financial self-care and try to feel good about the money you do have and the ways you’re choosing to spend it.
Stick To 30 Percent For Lifestyle Spending
Ideally, you should be making enough money that you can have a certain percentage of your budget that isn’t automatically allocated to fixed costs. According to Alden Wicker, a contributor to The Muse, planning to allow for 30 percent of your monthly budget to go toward “lifestyle spending” can be a great way to start.
By setting 30 percent as the ideal that you’re trying to achieve for your self-care budget, you’ll have the freedom to sometimes spend less and sometimes spend more. Especially if something you’re wanting as part of your self-care is going to be expensive, like cosmetic surgery or something else for health and wellness, you can save up over a few months’ time.
Find Inexpensive Ways To Care For Yourself
In some instances, you simply might not have the room in your budget to save or spend on self-care. Luckily, you can find ways to care for yourself without spending much money at all.
According to Susan French, a contributor to The Mighty, some things or activities that can count as self-care without costing you anything could include being more positive with your thinking, spending time away from electronics, getting outside and into the sunlight, meditating, getting more sleep, or saying “no” to something that causes you stress.
If you’re worried that you’re not taking care of yourself as well as you should be due to financial constraints, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you remedy this.