AAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! by Anna Bates
Sitting in my personal finance class, I felt like my heart dropped to my toes. It was time for a very hard, very uncomfortable assignment: Making a personal budget. I immediately began to search for excuses for why a budget didn’t really matter for me- I have an inconsistent income, I don’t have any major expenses. I… don’t want to. Confronting the facts of my finances was intimidating, because it felt like an overwhelming amount of things that are very personal to me required immediate attention and a concrete answer. In my head, I was screaming out for help- “AAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
That night, I attended a Zoom meeting for our Hey, I’m Here! Squad, and lo and behold, one of our topics was budgeting. I steeled myself for the doom that was sure to be approaching me. But then, I found that the anxiety that I had anticipated didn’t overtake me. Yes, we discussed budgeting- but not budgeting in the typical sense. Instead, we talked about budgeting in the form of a “daily dollar”- Which I’ll explain in a moment- and all my friends know I go crazy for some good alliteration- So of course, I was already more at ease.
The idea of the daily dollar is the idea that throughout our day, we have a budget of a dollar, and some things cost us energy, while some things are free (not costing or giving any energy,) and some might even give back energy to our day! I thought to myself, “the budget session earlier in class must have cost at least a pocketful of change.” Then, something interesting happened- I was giggling over my “pocketful of coins” visual, and then I started to feel less anxious about the idea of budgeting. I had gotten back a few cents from my laughter.
So, the next day, I decided that I had to test out my new way of measuring my energy level. I made mental notes throughout the day, creating a sort of bank statement for what gave and took from me, and it went like this:
Getting out of my warm bed: -$0.05
Preparing myself for the day: -$0.05
Listening to the birds and enjoying the sunshine and greenery on my way to class: +$0.05
Sitting through a (boring) 8AM class: -$0.20
At that point, I stopped to observe the list that I had made so far and saw a glaring issue. It was only nine in the morning, and I was already at a quarter deficit. But all the
things I did were things that I had to do- So what would I have to do to reasonably protect my energy level throughout the day?
Of course, I realized this as I was sitting in my dorm, quietly eating my yogurt-peanut butter-granola-fruit explosion of a breakfast. And it dawned on me- I was gaining as I was sitting there, being quiet, in my safe space, fueling my body for my next class. So, my list began to be a little more even:
Eating my yummy, healthy breakfast: +$0.15
Doing my laundry (hello, three flights of stairs!): -$0.20
Talking with my roommate about our plans for the day: +$0.05
Going to the rest of my classes: -$0.25
Listening to my music on the way to work: +$0.10
And eventually, the day ended with a whole fifteen cents to go, lots of tasks- like laundry and taking out the trash- getting done, and a more restful end to my day. Oftentimes, I, like many, get in my own head about how much I need to do, when it needs to be done, and how I can get it done as fast as possible. But this inevitably leads to burnout for me, and I don’t think I’m alone in this. Making a list of the things that need to be done in a day and just staring at it make me feel like I am a tourist looking at the pyramids, wondering how they were built, researching how in the world they could have been built, getting confused by all of the conspiracy theories online, becoming upset about the conspiracies that didn’t make any sense, checking the time to see that an hour had passed, and realizing that all the while, I hadn’t walked a step closer to the pyramids because I was so busy questioning them.
With the idea of my daily dollar, though, I could form a loose budget, create a mental image for myself, reassess through the day, and prompt myself to highlight the energizing parts and acknowledge the negative or tiring of my day, allowing them to be draining while creating solutions to protect my dollar and get me through the day.
So, on Thursday, I entered the business building, having just gotten ten cents from my lunch with friends. I sat in my chair, got out my notebook, and got into the headspace of budgeting. Inevitably, it was a day devoted to creating a detailed budget in our class But that day, I was peaceful and even excited about creating my budget. I knew that I could work as I went, celebrate accomplishing my assignment, learn how to better manage my money, and maybe replenish my dollar after with a visit to the Goodwill bins- Don’t worry. My visit was all in the budget- Monetarily and otherwise.
Additional tools for when you may be in crisis:
U.S. Crisis Text Line: 741-741
Ohio Mobile Response and Stabilization Services: 1-888-418-MRSS (6777)