Hello.
I have anxiety and have found a few things to help me find balance between obsessive tracking (my therapist encourages me not to use the word obsessive, but that is the best way to describe it) and just never ever looking.
I’ve set almost everything that I can onto auto-pay/auto pilot.
In order to do this and not fully and deeply panic (which I still do sometimes) I built up a buffer, which took a very long time and I’m still working on it.
I keep way more in my checking account than I “should”, and I have every auto-draft backed up to my general emergency fund, which is also a bit too big.
I’d say I started to feel a bit more peaceful when I had about 1k “extra” built up, which took quite a long time.
My checking account never goes to zero. This is not optimal, BUT it eases my anxiety to such a large degree that I consider it a mental health bill, spread over several years. Really, genuinely, doing this has helped change my life for the better.
Now, after watching the very small fluctuations in my bills over time, and knowing they won’t crush me, I just keep that extra 1k in there and let the bills be auto-paid.
It has changed my life.
I also feel incredibly privileged and lucky to have had the ability to earn and deposit the 1k to begin with. It took me a few years of putting a little extra in each month after bills, savings, retirement, etc.
When I have a big purchase, I take it from a specified sinking fund (Car, Pet, Medical, Gym, etc.), which works for me, but again is non-optimal, as my sinking funds are all in savings accounts.
I think a lot of people who go on about how important it is to have everything optimized for maximum financial returns either/both:
Are incredibly privileged and have never experienced having the rug pulled out from under them financially and
Don’t struggle with anxiety and/or other mental health issues.
$1k in a checking account that lets you sleep at night and doesn’t encourage you to check your balance 28 times a day (or more) is TOTALLY optimizing in my book. You are optimizing for quality of life. Don’t underestimate the value of that.
I struggle to not check my balances almost every day and I stress if I owe any money anywhere (i bascially feel compelled to pay my credit card off every day as opposed to end of the month)
and I find I check my money a lot more when feeling more anxious as I feel its something I have at least some control over.
I am usually a fairly stress free person, but in recent months (certainly compounded by the stress of studying for and taking the bar exam during the summer), I have become increasingly anxious about money–to the point that it is affecting my sleep and eating habits!
Budgeting is something I know that I need to do, but even starting it stresses me out. I really struggle with this and don’t know why or how to get over it. I’ve tried Mint, but got overwhelmed with it. Same with YNAB (especially with the credit card debt I struggle with, and their weird rules with it, just making me more stressed and confused).
I need to find a system/method that is simple and that works for me. Still searching.
Hi Swaddle! I finished graduate school last year, so I feel you on the stress! The weird thing is it doesn’t just vanish once the stressor is gone…it leaks out slowly as you live a more or less normal life. Or at least that was my experience. It also bleeds into other areas in the meantime, like budgeting…
In my case, I did not need to take on debt, but I was on a fairly low stipend with a lot of unknowns in the future, and then I spent 4 mos unpaid while editing my thesis and job hunting. That was the one period in my life when I hated checking my accounts and paying bills. The accounts were only going down, I didn’t know when it would end, and I never met my emotional, unrealistic goal of $0 spending (and I wasn’t even paying for rent or food…) My anxiety there was clearly, I will run out of money and be dependent on bf before I secure employment. Your situation is different (sounds like you have a steady income), but is your underlying worry the same, that no matter what you do, the ends won’t meet once you have to pay on loans? Or is it a different underlying fear, that you will have to cut all the fun/good stuff from your life to make it work? Ir is something else altogether keeping you awake? Because I think the advice needed is different in each case.
Either way, much sympathy, because anxiety sucks in any arena!!!
Thanks for the response!
I think my anxiety is kind of a mix of both: on the one hand, it is terrifying to me that once the loan payments hit in November, I’ll basically be paying an amount equal to a second rent every month… And that’ll really stretch me thin. I started work mid August, and literally got married two weeks ago: so basically my two paychecks so far have gone towards rent and the wedding. Now that’s over, I can focus on other things. But I stress about the loan payment for sure.
On the other hand, I do worry about not being able to do fun things. Not like I want to go out and blow all my money now that I’m getting a steady income… Not at all. I do consider myself somewhat conservative with my money (in terms of things, at least, like I don’t buy random clothes or entertainment or anything for myself all the time. My wife makes fun of me for never buying anything for myself. Most of my money goes towards food, or drinks, or concerts or what have you). I think I worry because we have been in school and studying for the bar for basically three and a half years, we didn’t take a honeymoon because of money and no time, etc. It’d be nice to be able to at least not stress as much about every single dollar or penny. And the loan payments (on top of all the other debt payments and expenses) make it harder to think about having fun or doing fun, memorable things.
What stresses you out more, tracking every penny or not knowing exactly where every penny is? People on this forum take both approaches to maintain mental health in the face of the existence of money.
I track every dollar spent and earned. My records are frankly ridiculous. My spreadsheets are epic. Same with @anomalily, but she makes pretty infographics and posts her data publicly.
Others have broad, general recordkeeping. They track trends and totals. Obsessing over the details makes them miserable. This is also valid although I don’t personally comprehend it.
Once you have a good tracking system you can make goals and know when you’ve met them, and you can watch the numbers move in pleasing directions. There ain’t nothing as motivating as a pretty spreadsheet, imo.
I’m an adherent to your method. I record and track every penny. I actually get a bit anxious (although not overwhelmingly so) when I don’t have access to my budget for an extended period, like when I travel.
Part of this may be that my memory isn’t great, so if it’s been too long since I’ve looked at my budget tracker, I forget how much I have and where it is, and it’s uncomfortable.
I think I get anxiety from a little bit of both? If that’s possible.
My expenses and debts and income have been so sporadic over the past three and a half years that it’s been difficult to actually track accurately.
But I’m setting a goal for myself in October to track every penny. I want to do it! I NEED to do it to better prepare and set up a budget for myself.
Do you–or anyone–have tips for setting up an expense tracker? I’m not, admittedly, great at spreadsheet-ing. I currently just have a note in my iPhone app that has a table with date, category, and amount in it. I’d love a more efficient and better method though, so I’m open to ideas.
I presented tracking approaches as a binary, but they’re really a spectrum. There’s a spot out there that will be useful and satisfying for you.
My day to day spending is done on my credit card, so I use my cc statements to fill out my monthly spending spreadsheet. Half an hour every month. Cash spending gets entered right away because otherwise I’ll forget.
What method of payment do you usually use?
Long ago when I was just starting out I had a notebook that I entered a line in each time I spent money. It had the additional benefit of lowering spending because I didn’t want to have to drag out the notebook.
We use a spreadsheet in Google Docs that my husband built. Here’s one that’s more attractive than ours:
Since your past financial situation is so different from your current one, I’m not sure that it’s worth your time and emotional energy to look back at past spending. I do think it’s helpful to track current spending and also have a sense of average spending in different categories, but you might find it more helpful to basically start with a clean slate.
You might sit down soon and plan what you think October’s expenses will look like, and then during October track your actual spending daily or weekly. Near the end of October plan for November, etc. As you get a few months in you can start averaging categories of interest to you, like groceries or home goods. You can also start to get a feel for how lumpy expenses affect your budget, like holidays, birthdays, car registration, utilities higher in certain seasons, etc.
I track in a spreadsheet every day (that I spend money). 5 minutes a day, it’s very doable and easy if you don’t get behind. (If you get behind it can be awful because it feels like a mountain then.) I split things from the grocery store (for example) into different categories (eg. pet food, paper products, personal products, alcohol, food), because I appreciate more resolution, so I have a sheet in my Google Sheets that has tax rates (we have 2 rates, one for food and one for non-food), so I can split up the receipts fairly accurately (accurately enough). This way it doesn’t matter if the money was spent as cash, credit, PayPal, whatever, and it is all 100% (99%) accurate. And I have some charts and pivot tables/calcs set up to see how things are progressing through the month/year.
that’s all. I don’t have any advice, as I do a lot of the same things. But you’re heard. 