My Favorite Ways to Spoil Myself & why you Should too.
Have you ever felt guilty about spending money on yourself? I have too. Guilt would creep in if I thought about buying myself something nice. I would be okay purchasing items for my kid or gifts for others. However, when it came to spending on myself I struggled to complete the transaction. I discovered the only thing I was really okay with spending on was food or groceries. This led to an unhealthy relationship with food and I became overweight. If I look back at my childhood that totally makes sense. There were times when we ate beans for supper because that was all there was. A scarcity mindset was created within me and I believed it was okay to spend on food because that equaled safety and security while spending on fun and extra items just because was out of the question. I believed I was not worthy of being taken care of or enjoying the nice things in life because I was not well cared for growing up so that was the message I received and internalized.
As I have worked on healing these stories within myself, life has found a more healthy balance and behaviors that once served to protect me have been identified as harmful in my adult life. When confronted with that you have a choice; continue causing harm or heal. I chose to heal and I hope you do too. That meant I had to learn how to spend money on myself and not feel bad about it. That also meant I had to stop justifying the large grocery bill and reallocate some of that money in my budget to other areas. Do you know I didn't even have a line item in my budget for personal spending? Nope. No line item for clothes, fun, or entertainment. No wonder I was overeating I sure wasn’t doing anything else, so might as well stay home and self sabotage with calories. Well no more!
My budget looks very different these days and it definitely includes spending money on myself. My favorite ways to spoil myself now include taking vacations, going to concerts, and spa days. I encourage you to look at your budget and your lifestyle and look at what you are doing to take care of you. Each person in your household should have a line item in the budget that says its okay to spend this amount on what contributes to enjoying life. I have multiple line items to the enjoyment of life now. My personal line item is used for the random things I want or need, I have a clothing line item now which is separate. I also put vacations and entertainment in their own slots also. My spa days come out of my personal line most of the time. Sometimes spa day is the cost of the items I buy to do a spa day at home and sometimes it's the cost of a massage, facial or whatever treatment I chose.
Take some time to think about ways that you can spoil yourself. Assess if you are actually taking the time to take care of yourself or if you are struggling like I used to. Then go download my free budget form and find ways to budget in personal spending. Your budget should be balanced between saving, giving and spending. Also check out my free download for recommended percentages for your budget. You are worthy of taking care of yourself and should be spending some of your money on yourself.
