spending money on self can look selfish or waste of money though it might be the only thing missing to help you live the better life you want to live
No one can set up a specific number for how much money should you spend on yourself, rather I see that it’s all about understanding why to spend on yourself and how to do it strategically to improve yourself and life. How much money should you spend on yourself is directly related to your goals and your current skills posture. The more the gap between your goals and current skills, the more spending you’ll have to do on yourself.
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Why Spending On Yourself?
There are few reasons why someone spend money on himself whether it’s for the right reasons or the wrong ones. Here they are:
1- To enjoy things
Most common and basic reason why you and I spend money on things we like and want, is to enjoy them specially on things that will entertain us like games or food which we’ll enjoy more than buying groceries or household supplies.
2- It feels good
spending on anything you want kicks up makes you feel happy because this is one of the activities that triggers your reward system and releases your dopamine levels making you feel better. There’s a disease called Compulsive Buying Disorder (CBD) where an individual is addicted to repetitive and excessive purchasing, and results in mental, social, occupational, financial, and often legal problems.
So far I’m talking about spending on anything good or bad, whether it’s that chocolate bar you adore or the protein powder to meet your daily protein intake levels. In both cases you feel good when buying them. So if all things considered, when buying things that are considerably good, at least for you, your dopamine levels should be doubled in my opinion because now you’re not just spending, you’re spending money on right things for you.
3- Peer pressure:
Another reason why someone might spend money on himself is just to look as good as his peers, friends, or neighbors. Basically, they want to “Keeping up with the Joneses”. I know it sounds like a wrong reason for anyone to spend money on himself but it’s a reason after all why some people do it and it’s up to the psychiatrist evaluation whether it’s right or wrong.
4- To meet your goals:
“You need to spend money in order to make money” that’s a basic investment rule that states the necessity of having to spend first to reap benefits later. Same rule applies when you have a goal that requires some investment in advance to achieve it, whether it’s a course to take, a book to buy, material to purchase, etc. If you don’t have what it takes for you to get to your goals and you have to spend money first, then it’s okay to do so.
Are You Spending Only Money On Yourself?
When you spend on yourself, you can either spend money, time, or effort. You can spend money when you’re buying things for yourself. Spending time on yourself happen when you take time to enjoy the thing you love like reading or watching movies. Finally, you can spend effort on yourself when you do something that will benefit you like taking a course or learning a skill
In my opinion, all cost you money whether directly like spending money or indirectly when spending time and effort because you could have spent them on things that can generate more money. In other words, instead of reading a book or taking a guitar course, you can work more and make more money.
That’s why, all forms of spending, whether money, time or effort, should be taken as investment if done on the right things in the right times.
Criteria To Help You Decide If You Need To Spend On Yourself Or Not
Here are few points to help you decide if you should spend on yourself or make you feel comfortable when spending:
1- Spend money on yourself if you want to invest in yourself for a better future
If you want better career and it requires learning a skill then you can spend the needed money, time and effort. If you need to scale your business and what’s missing is learning how, then you should read the books talking about this
2- Spend money on yourself if you want to reward yourself
The path of achieving goals, specially the ones related to self-improvement, is very long and you can get distracted or bored along the way. That’s why taking the time to reward yourself on different milestones is important to recharge your motivation and refresh yourself.
When you reward yourself, you activate your rewarding system and increases your dopamine levels which help you get going. The good thing is that rewarding yourself doesn’t have to be hard or expensive. It can be buying a chocolate bar or watching a movie or buying a fiction book or purchasing that game you were waiting for.
3- Spend money on yourself if you want to take timeout
As said earlier, the path of self-improvement is long and taking time out to refresh is another important tool you can use to keep going. The difference between rewarding and taking time out is that taking time out could happen at any point even before reaching a planned milestone.
Maybe you reached a point where you got stressed out from work or got tired and need rest so you decide to take few days trip away from work.
Conclusion
Spending money on yourself, whether directly or indirectly through spending time and effort can be a very important investment you make for a better future if done right. Also it can be used as a rewarding mechanism to replenish your motivation and help you stay on track on your self-improvement goals.