is financial sobriety a thing?
2025-06-26 07:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
myveryown_nemesisGood Morning, my Beautiful Friends!
The weather isn't doing exactly what I thought it would today -- I thought that the rain would start today, but instead, it looks like we will have more oppressive humidity and heat, for the most part. I'm going to stick with the same plan of working on the budget and bills, though.
I spent most of the time yesterday researching how to do better at budgeting and spending with ADHD, and I think I have a plan. I need to discuss it with my husband, because it affects him, too. I feel that we need to each have a preloaded card for our incidental purchase...you know, the stuff that you would have just used the cash you had on hand. Except we don't always have cash on hand, and there are some business which don't accept cash. We put nearly everything on credit cards, with the intention of paying off all new charges each month. And that often works. But neither of us are particularly good about tracking that spending, so we have some months where I have to say, "alrighty then, I guess I'm just going to pay *most* of the new balance," or I might react to a large unexpected charge by saying, "I'll deal with that next month." The problem with this thinking is that those extra charges accumulate.
This system would tie directly into SMART tools, like maintaining an urges log (which I haven't been doing...I've been neglecting my SMART Recovery handbook lately). I could write pages about the financial changes I want to make, but for now, I'll be putting more focus on maintaining an urges and spending log.
I feel confident in my sobriety and content with my eating habits. The reckless spending is a lot of work, but I do feel like I'm strong and capable enough to work through this. When I first looked at the upcoming bills for July, I felt frozen for a moment and almost set everything aside. Instead, I made note I had ahead of me, and decided I needed some budgeting tools (the type you learn, not the type you buy), which led to yesterday's research. Today, I'll be setting up a financial planner with the trackers and systems I think will serve me best, along with paying any bills that need immediate attention.
I hope that you find beauty in your day, and as always, thank you for being here.
The weather isn't doing exactly what I thought it would today -- I thought that the rain would start today, but instead, it looks like we will have more oppressive humidity and heat, for the most part. I'm going to stick with the same plan of working on the budget and bills, though.
I spent most of the time yesterday researching how to do better at budgeting and spending with ADHD, and I think I have a plan. I need to discuss it with my husband, because it affects him, too. I feel that we need to each have a preloaded card for our incidental purchase...you know, the stuff that you would have just used the cash you had on hand. Except we don't always have cash on hand, and there are some business which don't accept cash. We put nearly everything on credit cards, with the intention of paying off all new charges each month. And that often works. But neither of us are particularly good about tracking that spending, so we have some months where I have to say, "alrighty then, I guess I'm just going to pay *most* of the new balance," or I might react to a large unexpected charge by saying, "I'll deal with that next month." The problem with this thinking is that those extra charges accumulate.
This system would tie directly into SMART tools, like maintaining an urges log (which I haven't been doing...I've been neglecting my SMART Recovery handbook lately). I could write pages about the financial changes I want to make, but for now, I'll be putting more focus on maintaining an urges and spending log.
I feel confident in my sobriety and content with my eating habits. The reckless spending is a lot of work, but I do feel like I'm strong and capable enough to work through this. When I first looked at the upcoming bills for July, I felt frozen for a moment and almost set everything aside. Instead, I made note I had ahead of me, and decided I needed some budgeting tools (the type you learn, not the type you buy), which led to yesterday's research. Today, I'll be setting up a financial planner with the trackers and systems I think will serve me best, along with paying any bills that need immediate attention.
I hope that you find beauty in your day, and as always, thank you for being here.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-26 07:23 pm (UTC)Turns out my spouse isn't interested in using a preloaded card for his incidental spending, so I asked him to start thinking about ways he can be more aware of his spending. He is creeping closer and closer to retirement, and we truly cannot afford to continue to spend the way we have been. Not just me, but him, as well. He's been in a pretty good place in his surgery recovery, so it was a positive chat. I will be doing the preloaded card thing (I'm going to see if any of the banking institutions we use offer one, because if you can get one through your bank, the fees are usually lower -- this was one of the avenues my research took me through yesterday), but it's not my place to push the idea on my husband.
If he doesn't find a way to track his spending, however, I might end up handing the bills and budget over to him. Paying bills is stressful when you only know half of the family's spending trends; budgeting is impossible. And this is why I haven't really budgeted over the years. I just take care of the accounts payable to the best of my ability. I'm moving forward with the information I have, and taking charge (ha! no pun intended!) of my own spending.