Five Ways to Avoid Financial Burnout

As inflation continues to loom over everyone, interest rates continue to rise, and federal student loan repayments begin again, it is hard not to feel burnt out by all the financial burden going on. No matter where you are in life, here are some ways to avoid or lessen financial burnout.

With the fear of a recession still on the minds of many people, they may start stressing over how they can save every penny they have. Just this year, 52% of people say money harms their mental health. While it is understandable why people are worrying about their money today, there are ways to help ease the anxiety and potentially avoid feeling burnt out by your finances.

Save Where You Can

While there is not a lot you can do to forgo your stress, there are still ways you can ease it. Looking at what you can control like the amount you spend can help decrease stress and guide you on a path of financial ease.

One area that a lot of people forget about is subscriptions. Automatic payments are beneficial in many ways such as preventing missing a payment and lowering the amount you owe when you enroll — but you may end up like many who “set and forget”.

Take a look at all of your subscriptions and see which ones you can either limit or cancel. A lot of the time, many people can lower their tier for the subscription plan if they do not use it as frequently, or they can cancel it entirely if they don’t use it anymore. Although saving a few pennies or dollars does not seem like a huge dent in your financial life, it can build over time and make a wider difference in the future. Pulling back today will allow you to put forward in the future.

Finding a Side Hustle

In your adult life, it’s important to have a steady income to pay the essential bills, and after budgeting everything out, you’ll want to have money left over for personal use. However, with the price of goods going up, the amount you set aside may become smaller and smaller. Finding a side job, or working a couple more hours on a shift, may help with any increasing bills or putting money in your savings for a rainy day.

As the holiday season starts to approach, many retail companies are looking for seasonal employees to help with the increase in customer traffic. This is a good option for people who want to save a little more for holiday presents or don’t want to commit to a second job all year round.

Since COVID-19, the amount of remote jobs has increased, and even with life continuing to go back to a form of normality, they are still around. Finding a freelancing job that you do on your own time is great to have to store away a little pocket money.

No matter which way you decide to acquire extra side money, there are many different opportunities for you to choose from to help you achieve that goal.

Track Your Financial Spending

Spending money can get away from you sometimes, especially with the increased ease of ordering and paying for goods. While this may have not been a big deal before, it can become one when the price of essentials continues to increase.

Tracking your spending habits is a great way to understand what you have been spending your money on recently and where you can either cut back on expenses or cut out entirely. A lot of native banking apps allow you to see your spending habits within an easy-to-understand diagram and chart. This is a great way to know your financial habits over time.

Knowing your expenses and understanding your habits is a great way to know where you’re at financially, understand where you have to go, and find out how you can get there.

Take Out a Loan

While it may not be ideal, taking out a loan to cover debt or another loan may be beneficial if you are getting buried by the high-interest fees. For some people, they can have debt in many different areas, not just one. It can be on multiple credit cards, multiple loans, or any other area where you can borrow money from.

Taking out one singular loan to cover all of your debt can be good mentally because you’ll have everything you owe in one spot instead of multiple.

It is also good to apply to loans that may have a high interest rate and cover it with one that has a lower interest rate than it. You will still owe the same amount, but you won’t be hurt by the interest fees as bad if the rates are lower.

Again, while not ideal for many, taking out a loan to cover all — or most — of your debt is beneficial because it allows you to consolidate it into one area instead of multiple.

Managing Financial Burnout

Managing and dealing with ways to avoid financial burnout may seem daunting at first and discourage you from doing it, but once you get over that hill, you will realize how beneficial it is for your future finances. There’s not just one way to save money, and you should do what fits best with you, but the outcome is usually the same for anyone who goes on this journey. Saving today will let you expand your finances tomorrow.