Don’t Neglect Personal Development

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We’re pretty bad at taking care of ourselves. Usually when it comes to health. How many times have you used that gym membership you got three months ago? Health and eating one-to-many sweets aside, the area people just as often neglect is personal development.

Most of us just don’t make space for it in our lives and our budgets.

One of the first things to do when getting serious about your money is to look for ways to cut back your expenses. Cut the cable. Don’t eat out (no more Chipolte 🙁 ), make your coffee at home instead of getting it at the coffee shop. You know the gist.

Everyone is told to do it because of the importance of awareness in spending. It’s what I did when I first set out to understand my personal finances. I looked up “how to make a budget”, quickly got distressed because several of the budgeting styles sucked, then found a budgeting style that worked for me (!!) and got to work on figuring out where I could cut back.

While I didn’t have the big evil cable bill, I was able to find different areas I could cut back. Some of my bills, auto insurance especially, I was able to get reduced by calling in and asking about ways to lower my bill.

Fresh off from cutting expenses, I felt great. My budget categories mirrored what was on other popular budgets, so it made me feel good. I’m in with the crowd! I have a budget and know where my money is going! *gives self a high five*

But then things started to suck. Not in the typical, “I hate budgets” kind of way (because I had found a budget style that worked for me). What sucked was guilting myself out of buying anything that interested me educationally or in a growth sort of way.

A membership to Treehouse? Sounds awesome! But it’s not really necessary, so I don’t need to buy it. *spends the rest of the day passively watching TV while the thoughts of not having the thing consume my mind*

Often times, in the quest to cut expenses, spending on personal development gets cut. Sometimes without even realizing it. Many budgets don’t have a category for personal development. And if you do spend on personal development, then it’s seen as wrong or unnecessary.

When a book lover mentions that they *actually* spend money on books for leisure reading, the spending is knocked down. You know there are libraries, right?! Just read stuff online for free!

These purchases aren’t bad. Spending money on yourself, on things you feel will enrich you, is not bad. When you consider how personal finance is largely behavior and personality influenced, you can start to see how closely it relates to personal development. Personal growth matters in personal finance.

Recently I’ve started allotting money towards personal development every month. It’s now factored into my budget. Sitting pretty right in between that pesky electric bill and my entertainment budget. So next time I see an e-course on self-pub book design, photoshop, or a hand-lettering guide, I can buy without remorse because I know I’ve made space and budgeted for it.

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Colin // RebelwithaPlan

Colin Ashby is the writer behind Rebel with a Plan, a website dedicated to people who choose to rebel against the norm of living in debt and feeling financially unenlightened. He believes everyone has an eccentric quality to embrace and that lattes are sometimes a necessity (despite what the personal finance community tells you).

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