Being smart with your money isn’t always about constantly depriving yourself of pleasure.
It’s okay to indulge the occasional vice, but you want to be smart about those indulgences.
Here’s how Man Vs. Debt’s Adam Baker decides if a splurge is worth it.
We’ve written about how not allowing your budgetany breathing roomcan backfire on you.
Along those same lines, LearnVest interviewed Baker about guilty pleasure spending.
He says it helps to pick just one of your financial vices to indulge.
This can keep your overall temptation at bay.
Baker uses a few guidelines to evaluate these vices and decide which ones are the most worthwhile.
For example:
Is the vice impulsive?
If the answer is yes, it’s probably not worth gratifying.
So instead of throwing money at impulse buys, aim to spend on long-term interests and consistent desires.
Is it something you could control?
After all, you want your financial vice to be a smart indulgence, not a destructive one.
It seems a little ironic to analyze a guilty pleasure.
But this method makes sure you’re actually going to be gratified by that vice.
Check out Baker’s other guidelines in the full post.
