El Budget

I went to a church-sponsored women's conference over the weekend. After arriving in jeans and a baseball cap only to find the hundreds of other attendees all in their sunday best (why had everyone else gotten the memo even with no dress code listed on the flyer?), part of me wanted to turn right around and leave. But I'm so glad I didn't. Because the speakers and workshops were motivating, informative, and delightful. My favorite workshop talked about being spiritually-minded as we live our day to day lives. This is an area I struggle with, because, to be honest, who has time for that? I sleep, I go to work for 10 hours, I have to cook and eat, I have to do all the housework and yardwork, I have to run all the errands, and I try and have some semblance of a social life. Just taking today as an example, in addition to work, I need to get a new battery for one of my smoke detectors, pick up my contact lenses at the eye doctor, figure out what's wrong with the left blinker of my car, go to the tailor to have some pants altered, find a new dentist, and pay all my bills.

I find that because there is so little time leftover, I become quite selfish with it. The last thing I feel like doing when I have a free minute is reading scriptures or preparing a sunday school lesson or visiting someone in the hospital. Yes, this makes me an awful person, which is why I liked this workshop so much. Because as I sat there ready to tell the speaker that it's really hopeless, that I can't fit everything in my day, I began to realize that it's an attitude adjustment. Instead of saying 'I have to do all these non-negotiable regular things, so the best I can do is fit service etc. in whenever I can,' what I should be saying is 'service etc. is such a priority to me that I will find a way to multi-task it into my life.' Because it SHOULD be such a priority to me, to all of us. A girl I used to go to BYU with, currently serving as a missionary in New York City, was recently featured in this video/story. She says at the end of the clip that when she looks back on her life, the one thing she wishes is that she had spent it being more selfless. Wow. How many of us can say the same thing? That more than all the regrets or wishes or shoulda coulda wouldas, the one thing we would have done differently is been more selfless. Especially coming from someone currently doing such a selfless thing with her life, it about brought me to tears. What an example she is.

Another of the workshops focused on credit cards, budgeting, and managing debt. Having gone to B-school, I'm probably more informed on these principles than most, and found myself surprised at the number of women who had absolutely no clue about what lowers and raises your credit score. But the workshop did remind me to run my credit report for this year, which I hadn't done, and it also inspired me to create a budget. The idea of budgeting is not new to me. I was quite diligent at it while in school, because I had no money. If I spent too much on some things, I wouldn't have enough for others. Like food. So I budgeted. Now having joined the ranks of the gainfully employed, I have stopped budgeting entirely. The main reason being that I haven't really seen the point.

I'm never in jeopardy of not having enough money, so why live by a budget? Even after I pay the bills and buy extra things, I still have a nice chunk leftover to save, so I felt I didn't need one. The other reason is I don't want to feel guilty when I decide to go against the budget. For example, if my favorite broadway show comes to town, but I've already spent my fun money for the month on a concert, I don't want to feel like I can't go, but nor do I want to feel irresponsible if I do go. But I've realized that (1) I really should be keeping better track of my expenses via a plan of some kind, as it will help me save even more money. And (2) a budget is like a pirate's code: it's a guideline, and one can parlay out of it when necessary. The nice thing about my situation is that I can make adjustments when things come up, but most of the time, I'm confident I'll be able to stick to the budget. Other than the measly $20 per month I'm allowing myself to spend at Target. I'm currently taking bets on how soon I'll parlay out of that one. I'm betting on yesterday.