Dear Budget: Reason #5 Why I Hate You. You Remind Me of My Ex-Boyfriend

Another reason we hate budgets..they remind us of an old boyfriend. Who comes to mind? You might be picturing your high school boyfriend or that guy from freshman year at college; that you really, really hate.

We are going to take the way you think about budgets from “the-ex” to Ryan Gosling.

According to Kate Rose from Elephant Journal, we only fall in love with 3 people in our lifetime, each for a specific reason.

The first love is young love, you don’t know much about love, it is naive, you think you know what you are supposed to do but you really have no clue. You have had no experience with love and you are figuring it out as you go. In this type of love, how others view us is more important that what we actually feel.

The same goes for your first budget. You aren’t really sure what it is supposed to look like, what to do, where the boundaries are.

With me?

With this love and budget, it is about changing who YOU are to make it work. It is all about perception:  I’m in a relationship, I’m a grown up, I have a budget.

But, alas, you and this budget are not meant to be. You haven’t learned what a budget is supposed to be like and your friends are no help. You spend and splurge on anything you want and at the end of the month, you are left with nothing to show for it. But you want everyone on Instagram and Facebook to know that you just spent $150 on dinner, again, for the 3rd night this week. Perception.

The second love is our hard love. Kate says this is “the one that teaches us lessons about who we are and how we often want or need to be loved. This is the kind of love that hurts”. She explains that we think this love is different than the first but it is still unhealthy, addictive and has high levels of drama.

Remember your 20s?

It is the same with your second budget. You learned from the first one that it didn’t work because it was too naive, not enough boundaries and you really didn’t know what you were doing. So this budget..this one is going to be strict, hard, painful. We are going to feel this budget.

But it is unhealthy because we are still not being our authentic self. This budget, like the boyfriend, is keeping us from being the person we want to be. You are saying to yourself: I don’t want to eat at home every.single.meal. I don’t want to stay at budget hotels. But this budget makes me. We think it is us. That we did something wrong. Why doesn’t this budget love me?

We keep thinking “if I can just change who I am, I can make it work”.

Neither love or budgets should be that way.

The 3rd type of love, the love that lasts. This love comes so easy, it looks all wrong for us, it breaks all ideals of what love should look like. It just fits.

This can be your relationship with your budget. It reflects who YOU are. It comes easy, it is everything we think a budget shouldn’t be. Easy. Flexible. We get to do what we want, buy things we like, take care of ourselves, prioritize our values and the budget stands beside us.

A budget needs to be as unique as you are. Just like love, there is not a one-size-fits-all.

The article goes on to talk about how some may find this 3rd love right away and not have to go through the trials and pain of the other two. It explains that it may be the journey and the lessons of the other two loves may be the lucky ones.

So many of you reading this may have created a budget right away that loves and respects you. Others may still be in the first or second love (budget) trying to make it work. If the later is you, you have some options, you can stay in that relationship and try to make it work. The first one that looks good, gets a ton of “likes” but leaves you and your bank account empty. The second one where we believe that this budgeting thing has to be a fight; has to be hard.

Or you can decide that you want something different. That you want the 3rd love. That you want a budget that just seems easy, where you just seem to connect and you can’t quite understand why. Where you both seem to work together and you live your life the way you want to. You both work hard to keep it going and both of you are putting in the work and supporting each other.

You don’t feel a constant need to post to everyone how happy you are. There are good and bad days, and sometimes you are happy and sometimes you aren’t but that doesn’t mean the relationship is over. Instead, you come together and sit and talk and solve whatever problem comes up.

Do you need a money coach to help you create your third love? Let’s schedule a budget intervention session.