Our Curated Money Rules
Have you heard of choice overload? Basically our brains find too many choices and options overwhelming and can cause us to feel paralyzed. Although it is natural for us to assume that more choices = more freedom, research has shown that we have a harder time choosing from a larger range of options and surprisingly has also found that when given more choices, we are often more dissatisfied with the decision that we make and more likely to regret our choice.
Enter the Curated Money Rules - a set of money rules that you set yourself that you can refer to for your money which reduces choice overload.
I find this is especially helpful to ensure that you are:
On the same page (for couples)
Being intentional about where you want your money
Being proactive rather than reactive
Here is a sneak peek into our personal curated money rules (I was personally inspired to create them after hearing Ramit Sethi’s money rules). Your rules should look completely different and reflect what is important and meaningful to you and the curated life you want to create.
Save up cash for all purchases (including cars, holidays)
Invest a minimum of 28% of our net income each month into low cost index funds
We don’t lend money to anyone - period
Gifting and donations - we set aside a % of our monthly income into a special fund for this
Spend lavishly on holidays (business class for flights over 5 hours, nice accommodation, purposely overbudget spending money so we don’t have to be too careful around money whilst we are on holiday)
Each get a set amount of ‘fun money’ each month to spend on whatever we like, no questions asked
Buy quality over quantity
Have an emergency fund of minimum 6 months of basic expenses (currently 1 year of basic expenses)
We don’t question cost of groceries since we are both foodies and prioritize quality food - we buy whatever we want and make sure we are generous in this category when budgeting (this took some getting use to in the beginning since I was used to sticking to a strict limit when we were paying off our mortgage)
I hope this inspires you to make your own set of curated money rules at your next money date.
Photo by Marissa Grootes