Personal finance is actually boring. Once you’ve automated and optimized your financial life, there’s not much left to do except occasionally revisit how things are going and make minor tweaks. And that’s how you want it to be! You don’t want a financial life where everything is chaos and surprises are constantly erupting at every turn. (I mean, if those surprises were winning lottery tickets every week, or inheritances from long-lost dead relatives, then maybe surprises would be nice. Usually, though, financial surprises are bad things like forgotten bills or taxes, or foreclosures and repos.)
When you first start out on your financial journey, everything is new and exciting. Saving tips and frugal living! Learning about compounding! Investing and 401ks! Debt payoff strategies! Automated savings and payments! Look how fast our net worth is increasing! Oh, it’s all exciting and there are new things to learn at every turn. But, really, there’s only so much to learn and only so much you can tweak. After a while, everything becomes a rehash of stuff you already know. Once you’ve built the machine, you just have to sit back and let it work its magic.
What do you do then, when the rush is over? When the excitement gives way to boredom? When the days pass and you’re doing all the right things, but time is the one thing you cannot rush? Well, first of all, you go out and live your life. People who are too focused on the end game often forget that life has to be lived in the now. While it’s great to prepare for retirement or other major goals, you don’t want to neglect living life in the present moment.
That doesn’t mean you go out and YOLO all over the place. Going on a spending binge isn’t the solution to boredom. However, you do need to remember to enjoy your friends, family, hobbies, and passions today. Life is what happens when you’re waiting for the future, and you don’t want to miss it. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, so you don’t want to put everything off until some date far in the future. You just need to enjoy your life responsibly and without doing damage to the long term plan.
Beyond remembering to enjoy your life while it’s happening, here are some other tips to deal with financial boredom:
Resist the urge to gamble or rush the process
Some people look for boredom relief by testing out new investments, or they try to rush the process by checking out get-rich-quick ideas. This is dangerous. Too many people end up investing in things they don’t understand, get sucked into scams, or lose everything due to gambling with risky investments. (Some people even turn to traditional casino or poker gambling out of boredom and a desire to get rich quick.) Don’t risk your goals with this stuff. Stick with your plan and your well-chosen investments.
Don’t fall back into old habits
When you’re bored, it’s easy to fall back into the spendy habits you’re trying to correct. One meal out becomes two, then twenty because it’s more interesting than cooking at home. One splurge turns into more, bigger splurges because you want the high of spending that you’re not getting from saving. Don’t let yourself backslide. A little indulgence is fine, but don’t let it get out of control and undo all the work you’ve put in.
Celebrate milestones
It’s okay to celebrate along the journey. If you cross a desired net worth, or if you solve a problem, it’s okay to celebrate that. Do something fun but inexpensive (or free). Toast your success with a homemade cocktail, or take in a movie you really want to see. Go to a cool free event in your town, or indulge yourself in one nice dinner out.
Find novelty within your budget
There are plenty of things to do when you’re bored and many of them are free or cheap. You just have to look around for new places in your town to visit, free festivals, a new food truck, and so on. Or find a new author and binge their books from the library, or subscribe to a streaming service for a couple of months and binge a new show. You don’t have to spend a ton of money to find a little novelty in your life.
Work on new goals so you always have something new to strive for
Once your financial goals are on track, find new goals to strive for so you always have something to keep you interested. If you need to lose weight or improve your fitness, work on that. Perhaps you want to master a new skill, advance your career, or improve your home. When you have goals, you’re always in that “head rush” phase of learning and doing new things and you don’t get bored.
Work on contentment and gratitude
Not everything has to be super fun and interesting all of the time. A little boredom gives you a chance to rest and recharge after investing all that energy in getting your finances under control. Take some time to be grateful for what you have and what you’ve accomplished so far. Work on being content with where you are and enjoying the life you have now.
Create mini-goals and challenges
You can keep things interesting with some interim goals and challenges. Experiment with no-spend challenges, or dropping something you think you need (like a service or subscription) to see if you can get by without it. Try to increase your savings by $X per month. Challenge yourself to DIY more, or learn to cook better. These things don’t have to be permanent if you don’t like the impact on your life, but you can stretch yourself a bit and see how it goes.
Help others on their journey (or just help in general)
Helping others is a great way to alleviate boredom. If you can find a way to inspire others on their financial journeys, that’s great. Share your knowledge in forums or offer to teach something like a coupon class at your local library or senior center. If you don’t want to help with finances, just help wherever you can. Visit seniors at a nursing home. Volunteer at a food bank or animal shelter. Volunteer with an organization that cleans streams, creeks, or roadsides. Having something positive to do with your time keeps you from mucking with your finances out of boredom.
Avoid comparing yourself to others
Comparison ruins everything. When you’re bored, it’s tempting to look at how others are doing. Don’t do it. It makes you feel like you’ll never have enough, live in a nice house, or be as rich as so-and-so. You end up feeling like whatever you have, no matter how great, is actually crappy. Avoid social media or “friends” and family who are always bragging about their stuff or money. Besides, most comparisons are false, anyway. You don’t know that the person you’re comparing against is telling the truth, and you don’t know whether their “success” is financed by debt.
Boredom doesn’t have to derail your financial progress. There are plenty of things to do while you wait for your financial machine to do its work and deliver you to your goals.
Read More:
Warren Buffett And His Boring Investing Advice That Could Make You Rich
10 Ways to Prevent Adult Boredom
The Unglamorous Ways We Save Money
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