Manage your Budget to Manage your Health

If the last few years have knocked your budget sideways, you are not alone.  If you lay awake at night wondering how you are going to make it all work out, you are also not alone.  And you are possibly making the problem worse by ramping up harmful stress that can erode your health.

Here at the Oasis Botanica, we are relentlessly reworking our business budget and our household budget in line with economic realities.  This is about as much fun as a root canal, but it is work we have to do if we are to keep our wits and our health about us in the years to come.

I find the best thing I can do to prepare for a difficult budget discussion is to count my blessings.  I am grateful for meaningful work.  I am grateful that our family business may have ups and downs, but it never completely stops.  We always have something to work with.  I am grateful for loyal customers.  I am grateful for the flexibility to figure out new and better ways to keep those loyal customers and attract new customers without navigating some inflexible mega-corporate business plan.

Why do we seem to regard money as a taboo subject?  I have never understood why people will share challenges in their personal relationships and their health more easily than they will talk about money.

Here is my personal plan to manage my budget so it is not the cause of sleepless nights.

1. I will not wait to win the lottery or hold out until "the economy comes back around" as an excuse for not managing my budget.
2. I will account for every penny I spend so I know how I am spending it.  I cannot control anything unless I can accurately measure it.
3. I will lose any guilt I feel about past money management, but I will not lose the lesson.
4. I will place savings and some level of charitable giving in the same essential categories as food and shelter.
5. I will place some level of personal discretionary spending in the same essential categories as food and shelter.
6. I will not hesitate to say "thanks, but that is not in my budget" when a friend suggests a dinner out or a discretionary expenditure.  I am not deprived.  I am simply making choices.
7. I will discourage any sense of entitlement or financial envy in myself and in my family and friends.

Finally, I will continue to count my blessings and know that true prosperity is a condition of the soul, not of the checkbook.

Please wish me luck and the courage to stick with it.  I wish the same for you.