I tend to be highly critical about my spending decisions. Because I have quite little money to spend, I tend to evaluate my needs and wishes with harsh judgement. Let me go through my thoughts related to money and spending.
First of all, my income is not that big. I get around 1200 € from Kela and Ilmarinen combined (my disability pension). Above from that, I occasionally get some additional income from work, gigs, and selling my items in Tori.fi. Now that I have worked for the NGO, I have got around 300 € per month as a salary.
According to some research, I have a lower than suggested minimum budget. This means that I live in income poverty. The researchers use a referential minimum budget as a means to evaluate whether a household has enough income to live a decent life in Finland. Currently the minimum referential budget for single-person household (according to Google’s AI summary; sorry for the crappy reference…) is 1250-1760 € per month. This is dependent on where you live and your gender.
As the same source says: “the poverty line is often more than what you are entitled for from social benefits, and thus many people with small income live in very tight budget”. In terms of income, this is my case, but luckily, I have a large buffer and some investments.
Secondly, my thoughts about money: “I am a bad person, when I overspend”, “I shouldn’t be wanting/needing this”, “I’m stupid, because I cannot make the ends meet”. Obviously, these are not at all helpful when you have little money to spend. They are spending shaming. Unfortunately, I often fall into it.
And yet, I tend to obsess with the money I have. I feel that I must save wherever I can and I cannot buy, for example, basic cheap food when I’m out or more underwear, if I don’t have income for that. This is where I also act very irrationally sometimes: for example, this month, I’ve spent 1100 € (!) on a Tony Robbins event abroad. I ground this kind of spending in thinking like: “It’s a once-in-a-life-time experience.” And I really think so. But the problem is that I still don’t fully accept that I spent on it and I worry a great deal of other spending.
My wish is that a job would ease this situation somehow. I don’t know whether that will change the emotional issues I have with money, but I hope more income could allow me to live a better life. I hope that I could see my situation with more compassion, too, because I have basically everything in order (because I have a lot of savings and investments). My fear is though that I will end up totally broke and lose everything, if I continue on this spending path.
How about you, my reader? Do you have low income? Are you struggling with spending decisions? Do you shame to yourself if you go over-budget? And how could you and me rise from the poverty trap?