I have had an addiction to fashion for as long as I have had a National Insurance number. I love buying clothes and my collection of shoes and handbags are rapidly out growing my wardrobe! However, I think it is important that my regular fashion hits are guilt free. So here are my tips on how to make your purchase guilt free and to work out your monthly “Splurge Budget”:

  1. You need to know what you can and more importantly can’t spend. This relies on you be honest with yourself and completing a comprehensive budget planner. Don’t forget a thing! Your social life, hot drinks and holidays all need to be taken into account.
  1. Wait there’s more………. If you spent all the disposable cash today you wouldn’t be building up your financial safety net and working towards your financial goals/dreams. So money needs to be set aside for these too. Set up standing orders and direct debits to ensure this money is out of sight and therefore out of mind the minute that you get paid.

What is left over you can guilt free splurge!

Are the numbers not adding up? Here is a case study from a meeting that I had this week.

Splurge Budget Case Study

I sat down with Ottilie, the daughter of a long term client. She wanted to start her financial planning correctly and we worked out that she simply couldn’t afford everything she wanted to achieve and continue to spend her money without being careful. The question, therefore, was simple. What is more important; lifestyle today or lifestyle tomorrow?

Ottilie is a regular 24-year-old and she was torn. So we went 50/50. We worked out her essential spending (rent, bills, food). We then divided her disposable up 50/50. Half of it is allocated to doing sensible things and saving to get on the property ladder when she is 30 and the other half was her “Splurge Budget”.

Ottilie knows that this plan can’t continue forever but she is using the goals we set as inspiration to work hard and push for pay rises and promotions. For now, it feels the right thing to do and she will still be better off for working out her true “Splurge Budget”.

Good luck with your “Splurge Budget” calculations. I would love to hear your stories on social media.

Lots of Love

Miss Lolly

P.s – According to ONS the average weekly recreational spend in the South East was £76.30 and £59.80 in Yorkshire in 2015. How do you compare?