Mindful Money

For the holiday season, I bought one of my dear friends a subscription to Mindful Magazine, which is a brand new magazine, with the first issue coming out in... February? March? Anyway, in recent history. So I just got another issue the other day. I love this magazine. I love Shambhala Sun, too (made by the same people), but as Lesley pointed out, it's more Buddhist-oriented. Mindful is just about mindfulness, which is something Buddhists often practice, but can (and should!) by practiced by everyone, all the time. Basically, mindfulness is the epitome of living in the present moment, no matter what's happening. Not thinking about anything else, just appreciating and being full present in this exact moment. It's a wonderful idea, but super hard.

Mindfulness can be applied to any concept, but rather rarely is. This is what I appreciate about Mindful magazine; it takes all sorts of things you wouldn't think could be applied to the concept of mindfulness and applies the concept of mindfulness to it. For example, money. We all have complicated relationships with money. Perhaps we're awesome at budgeting, perhaps we are not. Either way, we spend time and energy on thinking and dealing with it. The article, "Make Friends with Your Money," in Mindful's June issue talks about how to spend our money and budget for our specific lives. Here are three of the concepts it covers.

• Detox - What are you willing to give up for 30 days? Try creating a list of things you have to buy, and only spend money on those things. Or create a list of things you really want to buy, but only buy them the following month. If you delay gratification, you may find you no longer want what you wanted so badly before. 
• Nourish - Align your financial choices with your values. Perhaps you want to buy only local products for 30 days. Or tuck some money away for a vacation with your family. Become more conscious of what you really value and find ways to direct your money there. 
• Savor - Notice everything that is sufficient - or more than sufficient - in your life. Write down things you savor (and maybe even consider writing a thank you card or two). This is about gratitude - but also conscious indulgence. If you decide to spoil yourself (or someone else) with something you've identified as aligned with your values, go for it. Enjoy it fully. Don't defeat the purpose by following it up with guilt or self-criticism

I enjoyed these thoughts very much. It's something I never really about, this idea of making a list of things that are important to me and budgeting around those things. For example, I have written before about my sponsored children. This is something really important to me. Bhajan just wrote to me yesterday about how he did really well in History and Geography on his exams, and now he wants to learn more about Geography. I'm going to send him a map to study in his free time. Without sponsorship, he probably wouldn't go to school at all. I want him to have the opportunity to study something he really enjoys, so I will continue to send him a small amount monthly for his education. Yet, I have an old phone. It's not smart. It doesn't get on the internet, it has a keyboard, and it flips up. It's old, but it's fine, and if I got a new phone, I'd be forced to upgrade to a data plan and start paying approximately more than twice as much than I'm paying right now. What would the point of that be? That's a needless payment. I can just keep my phone and pay less. It works just fine.

I hope in the coming months to practice these three concepts of detox, nourish, and savor, and recognize the superfluous spending I do. It'll be good practice for when I finally move out of my parents house.