Episode 1160: Is Budget Culture Real? And Bad?

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,160 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm

[00:00:07] Barry Moline: Barry Moline. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your. Having the ability to connect with others is key.

[00:00:24] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader. And

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: I do agree that there are a lot of gurus out there that promote. And say, this is the one way to success, but I don't agree as a financial coach, having worked with thousands and thousands of people that throwing out the baby with the bath water is what you're supposed to do, that you throw up your hands and you say I just have to do my own thing and there's no way to actually succeed here.

[00:00:59] [00:01:00] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, who will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your I.

[00:01:22] So that you can impact the world

[00:01:25] in today's episode about investing in yourself, through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about what some people call the budget culture and why they say it's bad. I share how you can get the benefits without buying into the bad. And I also share why it's all about mindset, not the actual techniques.

[00:01:45] As we talk about stewarding your treasures. Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself, an extra dime turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show.

[00:02:08] If you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/. A few months ago, back in March I saw an article and it's been going around a little bit on Facebook and other places that basically talked about recognizing and resisting toxic budget culture. And this idea of budget culture struck me as interesting.

[00:02:36] So I went and looked at the article and it's one of those where I agree with a lot of this. And I disagree with a lot of it as well, which is not unusual with articles of this type. The idea that there's this thing called budget culture, which this article defines is a damaging set of beliefs around money.

[00:02:59] That like [00:03:00] so-called diet culture does for food, embodies rewards, restriction, and deprivation, and promotes an unhealthy and fantastical idea of financial wellness. That's how they defined it. And if you

[00:03:15] think about that, that clearly is something that is. The idea that you can find a budgeting app or a magic technique, and some have another, that will fix all of your money problems. And you'll magically become rich. The idea that it's about restriction or deprivation or cutting things out to become where you are, the latte factor, the $5, just cut that out every day.

[00:03:40] And now you'll be a million. Not to mention the fact that somehow or another, that's the goal to be a millionaire, this idea of ignoring the real underlying things. And so they go on in this article and they say that budget, culture, rewards, restriction, and [00:04:00] deprivation, which is unsustainable. I agree with that ignores the dynamics of income interest in spending not necessarily demonizes spend.

[00:04:12] And then it says, which is the whole point of money. I don't agree with that. Either categorically label, certain money moves as good or bad for everyone. Again, I don't agree with that. I agree that happens. All of these things happen. If you tune into certain financial gurus, this is what you. It demonizes some ways of spending and elevates others.

[00:04:39] It promotes hyper vigilance around money. It values efficiency and economy above human health, happiness, and wellbeing. So the question is, does such a culture exist? And yes it does. Are there financial gurus that promote all of these bullets and say, this is the way to success. This is the way to be [00:05:00] rich.

[00:05:00] Yes. and they even promote that's the goal you should become rich. And they say budgeting is those money management methods that set spending limits, tracking money spending in both. And that doing those things automatically leads to those things above. And that's where I disagree because you can set limits on your spending.

[00:05:27] and you can do it out of a demonization of spending a fear based thing or hyper vigilance amount money, or because you wanna restrict and deprive yourself of things, because this is a bad way, or this is a good way. Or you can decide to set limits on your spending. Because you've made the decision that is in alignment with your bigger values, with your bigger goals, with your bigger priorities, with the things that you truly want to do to have a rich life.[00:06:00]

[00:06:00] Not because spending is bad, not because one way of spending is better than another, but because you've made the decision. See, that's the difference here? This isn't about deprivation. It's about alignment. Then it's about making a decision that this is in your best interest yourself. That's the difference when it comes from outside, when a guru says, this is always bad for everyone, this is the only way to do.

[00:06:33] If you don't use this app, you'll never be successful. If you don't have a million dollars in the bank, you're never going to be worth anything. You're gonna eat Alpo. When you retire. I've heard guru say all of these things and that's simply false. It's not the budget. That's good or bad. It's the mindset that you have behind it.

[00:06:58] It's. The [00:07:00] fact that you can actually get benefit again, let's go to the diet that they use as a reference. There are diets that are all about restriction and deprivation, but there are also diets or systems of health that are more about changing your mindset, your beliefs, and your relationship with food.

[00:07:17] Those work there's still quote diets. It's not the diet that's good or bad. It's the approach that the diet takes. I do the same thing with budgeting. I talk about budgeting, not from the point of view of restriction. What am I gonna say no to, but from the point of view of what are you going to say yes.

[00:07:37] To what are you going to allow into your life? It, this isn't about buying into someone else's definition of what's good or bad. This isn't about buying into what the culture says is good or bad. That's what this article basically says. It says the only way that budgeting does, the only thing it leads to [00:08:00] is a fantasy of being rich, buying into a model of success.

[00:08:04] That is racist. That is patriarchal. That is always biased. It's about buying into that bigger belief. And I would agree a hundred percent that buying into that bigger belief is absolutely a problem, but I don't agree that it's the budget that created that problem. I think it's the mindset and the cultures that we've created around it.

[00:08:33] And I do agree that there are a lot of gurus out there that promote that and say, this is the one way to success, but I don't agree as a financial coach, having worked with thousands and thousands of people that throwing out the baby with the bath water is what you're supposed to do. That you throw up your hands and you say I just have to do my own thing.

[00:08:55] And there's no way to actually succeed here because the wider culture [00:09:00] has set me up for failure. I do think there are things you can do to help yourself succeed, but they're really more focused on the mindset, the beliefs, not the techniques, not do I do a zero based budget. Do I do a percentage based budget?

[00:09:17] Do I categorize my stuff this way? Do I talk about once the needs this article goes on and points out that just saying something's a want versus a need is automatically labeling it. Good or bad. and I would say, if you buy into what the culture around you says that's not a want, that's a need, or that's not a need.

[00:09:35] That's a want it is. But if you set those definitions for yourself, if you've looked at your life and you've said for me, this is a need I'll use cable TV as an example. my wife and I went years without any sort of television, no cable, no network television. We didn't have any streaming surfaces. We did that for decades.

[00:09:58] And for us, [00:10:00] it was fine. We didn't do that because we wanted to cut our spending and not spend money on cable. We did it because for us TV, wasn't something that was valuable. It wasn't important. It wasn't something we wanted in our house or wanted to spend time. Since then now we have some streaming services and we do other things.

[00:10:18] We watch movies and do all of that because now we've decided that at this point in our life, this is something that's okay for us. It aligns with our values. So does that make TV a want or a need? Neither one, it just makes it something that for a while, wasn't aligned with what we wanted and now it is, and the same thing goes for you.

[00:10:41] So if you've hired a coach, if you're working with someone and they start going through your budget and telling you what you should and shouldn't spend where you should or shouldn't cut, then I agree. You're buying into this definition of budget culture that they lay out in this. But if you're working with a coach, like I work with people where it's more about, [00:11:00] what do you want to decide?

[00:11:01] What's important to you if leaving cable in is important, if that's something that's important and valuable to you, I'm not gonna look at you and say that's good or bad or a want or a need, because you have to determine that's, what's different about what they're calling budget culture and what I believe in when I say budget culture.

[00:11:24] Thanks for listening.

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