Elizabeth Ayoola

Maybe that 30 percent for wants may seem too robust for Michael.

That's right.

And looking at the progress of your goals, when I would shame myself about not saving enough, too, I remember looking back five years where I had literally, yeah, six years ago, I had zero dollars in retirement savings.

And when I look at how much I have now, I'm like, girl, you saved a lot of money.

Like, good job to you.

And that really did help alleviate some of that shame around spending.

All right.

What are some risks that come with being overly tight on spending?

One that comes to mind for me is the equivalent of crash dieting and then binge eating.

Ask me how I know.

As we're talking, I'm also remembering a conversation I had with a financial advisor maybe two years ago when I was having a cash flow issue, a.k.a.

overspending.

And I send my budget to him and he goes, you know, you have a really good savings rate.

And my issue is I wasn't having a realistic savings rate.

So I was trying to deprive myself so much by saving cash.

too much compared to the lifestyle i was trying to live and i ended up overspending every month so you know he said something to me which helped shift my mindset a bit which is like you're saving a lot you're doing a good job maybe allocate more to yourself basically for your wants and it was such a small thing but it really really helped to improve my cash flow because back to that deserving to spend money you deserve to have a little bit more fun money and you can afford to you're doing all the right things you're saving for retirement you have your emergency funds so let yourself enjoy your money

And please, if you're listening to this episode and you have some shifts, tell us what you end up spending on.

Tell us where your fun money is going.

And also, if you take any of the tips in this episode and apply them.

Join us next time to hear about values-based investing for retirement funds.