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Declutter Your Budget, Marie Kondo Style!

August 20, 2019 by OSYB Staff

Channeling Marie Kondo, Japanese Organizing Consultant, Gen Y Planning’s Associate Planner, Ashley Dixon, will share some decluttering tips to understanding your budget and finances. Here some of Ashley’s tip to approach your budget in a healthy and empowering manner:

  • Create a positive mindset – Perhaps renaming the task from ‘budget’ to ‘spending plan’ will alleviate some of the negative emotions that budgeting draws out. A spending plan simply means finding out where your dollars are being spent, then determining if these purchases meet your goals and values, and when they don’t, reassign the funds to a different purpose. You can also start planning a savings plan for larger purchases that meet your goals and values.
  • Pick a system to track your spending. Experiment with different ones, settle on one that doesn’t feel burdensome and becomes a comfortable routine. Pick one to start with.
  • Start tracking your expenditures, and sort them into:
    • fixed costs – mortgage, utility bills, etc., – all bills that you receive monthly
    • miscellaneous – everything else like entertainment, hobbies, plane tickets, etc. – these bills may not happen monthly
    • future goals – weddings, education, vacations, retirement, etc.
  • Examine your spending patterns and determine which of your spending habits can be eliminated because they really weren’t necessary or being used. Reflecting on your spending habits gives you the opportunity to find ways to cut unnecessary costs and to start saving for long-term goals that will give you great satisfaction.
  • Pick a day to start like ‘pay day’ and start making changes.

Just because your are more mindful of your spending habits, it doesn’t have to mean that you can’t be spontaneous, it just means that you are more aware of your spending style and saving regularly for long-term goals. In Marie Kondo style, eliminate the items that really don’t “Spark joy”!

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For full article: The Marie Kondo Approach to Decluttering Your Budget

Image Credit: Deposit Photos