With spring around the corner, you may be looking forward to spending more time outdoor and switching to a spring wardrobe. If you’re an adept of Spring cleaning, we bet you are also good at managing your budget. If you don’t feel it’s your case, here are how the arts of cleaning up and budgeting are linked.
Spring cleaning and budgeting are not natural
Let’s take two homes. One is clean, organized and the space not crowded with things. The second one is messy and crowded with things. You can be sure that the first home owners have the same organization and discipline with their budget while those at the second home have more chances to be in financial trouble. The good news is there is no fate. Actually cleaning your home efficiently and keeping a good budget can be learnt. They even share some basic principles.
Organization and efforts are the key to cleaning and budgeting
If you need some help to start, we think that the bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing is an interesting read. Even if we can doubt the concept of thanking objects for the joy they give us, the idea of keeping only items that bring us joy is interesting. It teaches us to focus on the essentials and to separate ourselves from the rest. The author explains the art of categorization and that each item has its place in our home. If we apply this methodology to budgeting, we should evaluate each spending we make and evaluate what it brings to our life. If we only focus on what we need, we can eliminate unnecessary expenses and save. Also organizing expenses by category is an essential tip to keep our budget organized.
Objects and spending often have an emotional meaning
The emotional attachment we have for objects is one of the reasons why people have such a hard time decluttering their homes. For example, it can be hard to throw away a dress we wore for big occasions even if it is now a bit too small. Spending money can also become highly emotional, some of us make purchases to cheer themselves up or to fight boredom. This behavior doesn’t help keeping a balanced budget, as for the need of disconnecting ourselves from objects when decluttering, we need to separate our emotions from spending.
Start the decluttering process now
Successful decluttering and budgeting need the right mindset and a lot of efforts at the beginning. Trimming down the unnecessary and categorizing are keys. So start with sorting the objects you don’t need and give them a new life by selling them on an ecommerce website or by donating to charity. Then note down your spending to analyze where you can save. Putting some order feels very liberating.
Need some tips to start your first budget? Take a look at this article.
