Financial Fun

Last week I explained why your finances and the systems that keep you going in the right direction should feel downright boring.

So, today let’s talk about where to find financial fun!

It’s not about what you can spend on. Not dinners out, going shopping when you need a pick-me-up, or redecorating your house for every season. Those things can feel fun, but only for a matter of hours or days.

The real fun comes from getting excited about the financial metrics that have much greater staying – and growing – power.

And those metrics start to move in fun directions from a cumulative growth of dinners not had out, shopping that’s avoided, and resistance to cute décor that tempts us with each new season.

Because wealth is what you don’t see.

Try keeping a running chart of your net financial assets, your monthly or annual savings rate, or your debt payoff. Watching those metrics, especially when you track them deliberately, need to become more fun to you than spending money. They’re slower to move, especially at first, but the staying power is exponentially more than buying things for which the fun fades.

Students of Money $trategy $chool get an email each weekend to help them give some deliberate attention to their finances and move into a new week with intentionality. At the end of a month and quarter, however, we focus on some of these metrics worth tracking over the long haul. Key numbers include dollars per month going to savings (your savings rate) and dollars per month extra going against a debt target (debt attack rate), while quarterly review items zero in on other key “big picture” metrics you can celebrate over time like your credit score or total combined (falling) debt balance.

When you choose a few of those measures to track routinely, their change over time can begin to give you that dopamine kick that buying things with money used to.

And eventually the spending opportunities you passed up can give you joy in themselves, because you know those decisions are fueling your progress.

For example, it’s easy for me to want to redo our entire house, inside and out – things get tired when you’ve lived somewhere for 10+ years raising kids.

But I know having bypassed a lot of redecorating, improvements, and other spending, I’ve allowed myself to leave a job that wasn’t serving me, expand my work and myself in new ways, and give my kids opportunities and an education that are entirely unique. And instead of moving to a larger house or driving newer cars, I can track our way to owning two houses (the other is our rental property) mortgage free by the time I turn 50.

That feels pretty darn fun to me. That feels like opportunity and freedom to me. That feels like higher potential for leaving a positive impact to me.

Yes, that kind of progress can feel slow at first, but it compounds. Pick a few metrics that you can see change each month, quarter, and year, and you may also find yourself looking back someday glad that you got your financial fun from building up those metrics instead of the fun of buying more of life’s temporary trappings.