Some money problems have pretty easy fixes (like not earning enough interest on your savings account or having the wrong credit card). Others require a lot more dedicated effort, though.
There’s one money problem that many people share which finance expert Ramit Sethi says rarely gets solved. It’s not lack of effort that interferes with addressing this issue, though. According to Sethi, there’s a very different reason why this one specific financial issue is rarely solved.
The money problem Sethi says most people don’t fix
One of the most common issues people have with money is that they sometimes don’t feel comfortable actually using it.
Sethi tweeted out a quote from someone who indicated they were “hesitant to spend money,” despite living within their means, having plenty of savings, and actually budgeting for an amount of their take-home pay to be used for enjoyable expenses. This reluctance to use money for entertainment or enjoyable expenses is actually shared by many, explains Sethi.
“This is a common problem, but one that rarely changes, because deep down, most people don’t actually consider it a genuine problem,” Sethi said.
As Sethi points out with this example, there are many people who are doing all the right things, who are on track to financial success, and simply can’t enjoy their money — but they don’t do anything to fix this issue because — despite what they may say — in reality very few people view being overly frugal as a real concern they need to actually take concrete steps to solve.
Here’s how you can overcome this issue — and why you should
A reluctance to spend your money on things you enjoy may not feel like a problem — especially when there are many people out there living paycheck to paycheck and genuinely struggling to pay the bills who would love to have that issue.
The reality, though, is that the purpose of money is to create an enjoyable life — not just to end up with the biggest bank account balance while depriving yourself of everything that makes living fun and meaningful. And if you have plenty of money and are doing the right things to build up your net worth but you aren’t able to enjoy spending some on things that matter to you, you’re missing out.
Identifying why this is a real issue is the easy part, though. Finding a fix is harder. You can budget for your spending money which helps some people to incur expenses guilt-free, but this doesn’t solve the problem for everyone, as the quote Sethi sent out shows.
If creating a line item in your budget that includes money for fun spending doesn’t help you to actually enjoy using it, Sethi recommends creating a conscious spending plan. This basically involves focusing on identifying and defining the things you really love and purposefully allocating some percentage of your income to them.
The bottom line is, you have to change your money philosophy, as Sethi explains. This means rethinking how you view the purpose of your funds and focusing on the fact that the money you’re making isn’t there to just help you get rich — it’s there to help you live a richer life.