I don’t know how often I’ve linked to Ramit’s amazing website, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, a break-it-down approach to personal finance, but everyone should check one of his recent articles, “What Do You NOT Care About Spending Money On?” I’ve talked before about prioritizing your dance expenses – or even whether dance itself is a priority – but how often do we think about what things aren’t a priority?
I had to face this recently. I didn’t update last week because I was traveling. We had a great time, met some cool people, ran classes that were very well received, and culminated with a fantastic social dance, but it also wiped my finances. Furthermore, my lessons are slowing down as wedding season comes to a close and, put simply, my budget will not afford everything I’m currently doing dance-wise. Something has to go.
I began by looking at my expenses. There are generally two expenses I face: regular expenses and irregular ones. Regular expenses include things like weekly lessons, while irregular expenses would be private lessons with visiting coaches, competitions, video purchases, and the like. Right away I notice that I’m spending far more on my irregular expenses than my regular expenses. In the past month, I’ve spent nearly twice as much on a dance weekend with workshops and competitions, videos, and an upcoming showcase, as I have on my certification training. Given that my next certification is my overtly-stated priority, this is a problem! I may care more about passing that test, but it’s getting less than a third of my resources!
The next thing I do is cut out what I don’t care about. The first thing to go are competitions. They’re fun but they’re also expensive, both at the time and in preperation. Even a low-cost competition, done on a budget, can pay for nearly a month’s worth of my certification lessons. Dance weekends are also out; the workshops are helpful and informative but they’re usually in specialty dances, not ones I’m being tested on. Likewise, video purchases are gone, at least until I exhaust the videos I already have.
Now that’s a great declaration, but remember that these are irregular purchases. I shudder to think how many of them were spur of the moment. If I’m going to stick with this budget then everytime an opportunity to make another dance purchase comes up, I need to ask myself:
- Do I really want this?
- Will this help me reach my dance goals?
- Will this take away resources from pursuing my true goals?
