Living for today vs fiscal fasting

linnite

Hi everyone.

Before I start I just want to say I mean this post positively, I'm not trouble-making or judging, we are all different, I just thought it might make a good discussion.

I also tried to find any similar thread without success. I'm sure there has been one but none came up on any search I did.

When I read posts on here about the likes of 'fiscal fasting' and how people can save another tenner here or there I wonder about living for today instead. We are on a DMP but for various reasons we do find there is a little bit of wiggle room and we do get to go on little holidays and enjoy Christmas and birthdays OK. Any windfalls (like we had a PPI and some money from a will) that come our way are spent on the home or good experiences for us all.

My partner's sister died young with a lot of regrets that she planned for all kinds but never did them. We have an 8yo and think we have to try and give him decent experiences and for him not to pay for our mistakes if we can help it.

Perhaps you will think this shows our mindset and attitude to debt hasn't changed and that we should find debt repellent and want rid of it on the earliest day possible. We have paid off half of our DMP and we do look forward to when it is done but we also feel we have to try and live at the same time. We could shave a year off our DMP maybe, but if life was barely worth living in the meantime, what would be the point?

Genuinely interested in different views!

-linnite

TrustyOven

I think you make good points.

Once debts / DMP is paid off, I don't see any reason not to save a bit for the future and use some leftover for fun today.

While in debt, I don't think it's right to spend a lot of money on fun now. But that depends on how much "a lot of money" is.

After debts are sorted, a person would want to save some money so they never run into the same problem again. This is called building up your emergency fund.

So, if you can save £1000 a month after bills, then maybe 50% save, 50% spend for "living in the now".

The same would make sense if you have £100 per month after bills. £50 for savings, £50 for fun.

Or choose some other percentage.

Spending a lot of money on fun while on a DMP just seems silly. But I think it also depends on how much is spent on fun and how extravagant the spending is.

I think generally people get into debts and DMPs because they generally spend too much for fun things now, rather than saving and insulating themselves to the bad things that could happen (big unexpected bills or loss of job).

So I would think that the most important thing in my post is to realise that a balance is what is needed. It should be easy to save and have fun at the same time.