What Do You LOVE Spending Money On?

“Stop wasting money on lattes.” 

“Take a staycation.”

“Don’t buy bottled water.”

Surely you’ve heard this advice from financial gurus before.

Yet this is not at all our philosophy at Veterinary Financial Summit.

We believe that personal finance isn’t all about cutting expenses. If you drastically cut expenses in every aspect of your life, you may end up living a life of regrets.

If you love Salted Caramel White Chocolate Fudge Frappuccinos, then enjoy!

If you want to recharge your batteries on a white sand beach in the Caribbean, then splurge once a year!

If you hate the taste of chlorine, then buy water that’s been filtered over 67 years in the heart of the Himalayas!

Our BFF Ramit Sethi, author of the best-selling book “I Will Teach You to Be Rich,” calls this concept “Money Dials.”

The idea is to “spend extravagantly and unapologetically on the things that truly matter” (to you) but to “cut costs mercilessly on the things that don’t matter” (to you). 

How do you find your own Money Dial? Answer this simple question: what do you LOVE spending money on? Your Money Dial is the area you naturally love to spend money on.

So if you’re a foodie, you may appreciate 5-star restaurants or cooking with elaborate ingredients from a local farmers market.

If you love interior design, you may enjoy searching for unique decorations in antique stores.

Different people may have vastly different Money Dials. Do you dream of wearing Christian Louboutins, or are you perfectly happy wearing flip flops? Do you preorder the latest iPhone, or do you wait until your flip phone breaks? Do you splurge on a personal trainer at the gym, or do you work out at home? 

As we wrote in Budgeting for Newbies, it’s perfectly acceptable to dedicate 10% of your take-home income to fun. In that blog, we don’t even count vacations as part of the 10%.

So there you go. We studied hard for years, with many sacrifices along the way. We work hard in practice, with yet more sacrifices. So let’s allow ourselves to play hard – whatever this means for you: decadent lattes or exotic trips.

Meredith Jones, DVM
Phil Zeltzman, DVM, DACVS
Co-Founders of Veterinary Financial Summit