Beating the Winter Financial Blahs

The middle of winter is a tough time for many people.  The days are still too short (in the Northern Hemisphere), for a lot of people snow or slushy rain prevails, and it’s often too cold to go out and go for a nice leisurely walk.  From a financial perspective, mid-February can be a challenging time as well.  Although most people are energized in January with fresh resolutions, savings plans, and Christmas bonuses, by February, the drudgery aspects of continually working hard, diligently saving, and remaining frugal seem to set in.  To beat away the winter blahs, it might help to take a few re-energizing steps:

–Maintain a modest “fun money” account and give yourself permission to spend as you wish — most people intend to have a fun money account, but then apply the funds to groceries or an incoming bill.  Although continuously spending unnecessary funds is not a good idea, occasionally splurging so that you stay on track for your big goals can be helpful.

–Re-review your goals and how much progress you’ve made toward them — if you have been practicing frugal living and strong saving and investing principles, this is a good time to review your goals.  Often seeing how much progress you’ve made can give  you a second wind.  Because many people have financial goals that are very long-term in nature, such as saving for a kid’s college education or paying off a home mortgage, creating intermediate milestones as indicated below is a good step.

–Create intermediate milestones to keep yourself on-track — intermediate milestones include a target savings amount, saving rate, or number of months of staying on track.  Having shorter-term goals that you can feel proud of reaching is a great confidence booster.

–Plan how you will use  your tax return, if receiving one — I try to plan my taxes to not receive or owe a large amount, however, if you are expecting a refund, now is a good time to plan how you will use the money, so that when the check arrives, you aren’t tempted to spend on unplanned items.  Use the tax return to achieve the intermediate milestones.

shared at this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance