海角大神

Recently, Sweating the Big Stuff featured a great article on聽. The idea really is pretty cool:

鈥�Whenever you buy something that isn鈥檛 a necessity, you impose a 100% tax on yourself that goes toward your savings account. For example, if there is a Blu-Ray you want to buy on Amazon for $20, you have to have $40 to spend on it. $20 goes to the Blu-Ray and $20 goes to the savings account. As the redditor puts it, 鈥測our larger savings plan can dictate where the money goes that accumulates in this account. (i.e. IRA, 401k, emergency fund, etc)鈥�鈥�

When I first read about this idea, I was a聽huge聽fan of the concept. It provides a great way for people to feel less 鈥渢rapped鈥� by money responsibility. It allows people to spend freely but still make progress toward savings goals.聽

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that聽this system is essentially a clever approach to a budget.

Let鈥檚 say that, on a typical month, you have $200 left over after all of your other expenses. On one hand, you could have two lines on your budget (one for saving $100 and another for spending $100 freely). On the other hand, you could just pledge to save $1 for every $1 you freely spend.

Both wind up with the same result. You end up with $100 in savings and $100 spent freely.

That鈥檚 not to say that both methods are completely equal. They offer different psychological carrots, ones that will work differently for different people.

I find that having a budgeted amount that I can spend freely each month knowing that I am already saving for my goals is the right approach for me, but I can see that many other people would find the 鈥減ersonal tax鈥� approach very appealing.

There鈥檚 still one more vital piece of the puzzle.聽Both approaches require self-discipline to work.聽If you鈥檙e not able to simply say 鈥渘o鈥� and stick to an agreement you鈥檝e made with yourself, neither the 鈥減ersonal tax鈥� nor budgeting will work for you.

Of course, there are many things you can do to 鈥渉elp鈥� yourself with discipline. You can shop without credit cards, using only cash. You can intentionally limit the amount of money in your checking account so that you鈥檙e actually not able to overspend.

Still, in the end, it comes down to self-discipline. You鈥檒l either look at things like this as restrictive and try to find ways to 鈥渃heat鈥� or you鈥檒l look at these things for what they truly are: self-rewarding.

If I鈥檝e learned one hard truth about life, it鈥檚 this:聽if you can鈥檛 make agreements with yourself and stick to them and if you can鈥檛 control your own behavior, you鈥檙e going to struggle mightily with everything you do.

The 鈥減ersonal tax鈥� is a great tool, but in the end, just like budgeting, it comes back to personal discipline. Can you make good choices over and over again? If you can鈥檛, getting ahead financially is going to be a challenge, with or without a 鈥減ersonal tax鈥� or a budget.

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