Paying attention to our finances can bring up some difficult feelings. There’s a reason we avoid this stuff – looking our finances straight in the face can be scary. But in truth, often the scariest thing is the judgement that we bring to it ourselves. Life is a constantly changing and variable thing, and that is reflected in our finances. We are constantly learning. That means that things will not always be smooth, and we are going to make mistakes or miss something. The trick is to know that this is all a learning process, to make room in our financial system for who we are, and adjust as needed.

Here are some places that I see people beating themselves up. If any of these is you, see if you can find some compassion for yourself. Take a breath, learn or grieve if that is what’s needed, and jump back in there.

1. Spending down savings – there will be times when you spend down your savings. That’s ok – that’s what they’re there for. If you were saving for a particular purpose and the event happened, give thanks that the money was there. It may be that your account drops to zero or very low, so just start over again with putting away the monthly amount you need for the next event.

2. Budget bust-out – sometimes a budget can feel like a strait-jacket, pinning us down and stopping us from having any fun. Everyone is different, but if you are the kind of person who struggles just against the constraint, build in an allowance for that. Make yourself an extra category for the “bust-out”, whatever form it takes, and then adjust your budget to make space for that.

3. Expenses go over – it happens. We don’t know everything, and sometimes something will come up that we didn’t anticipate. My son moved a few months ago, and he was blown away by how much it cost. Not the move per se – he put his 6 possessions in his car and drove across town – but the cost of setting up in a new place, new internet, getting take-out instead of cooking because there was so much to do and he happened to have a work deadline at the same time. The key thing here is to keep doing your tracking. It is easy when something like this happens to say “I can’t look”, and want to skip a month. But take a big breath and do your tracking anyway – then the next time you will know how much to budget for these things. Some things fall into the “totally random” column, that we could never have seen coming, and some of my people have a line for “unexpected” or “oops” and assign a budget to that.

4. Don’t have enough savings – the magnitude of savings that we need to accumulate over our lifetime is daunting. With emergency savings, retirement savings and everything else, it can get big. Try not to get distracted by the size of the numbers. The key thing here is just to start. Set up the accounts for each of your savings goals, and start putting even a small amount of money into each monthly. This is a marathon, not a sprint, so take it one step at a time. But just start.

5. FOMO – sometimes it seems as though everyone else is doing better than we are. Keep in mind that you don’t know someone else’s numbers, and take it from me that everyone else is not having the grand old time that you think they are. Put away the social media (or post your own enviable photos) and settle into what is true for you. Do you really need more income to be happy? – if so, then work on that. Or is there another way that you can create a life that you are happy with? – make those adjustments. It is rare that we can have everything that we want, but if we put everything down on paper, we can often find a way to our top few priorities.

6. Mistakes. There are times when things go wrong, either in a small way or a large way. Take the time to feel your feelings – sadness, fear, anger – these are real. When it is appropriate, start taking the steps to move forward. But try not to beat yourself up – just use it as a learning.

The key things to remember are that life happens and that everyone is different. Some things we can’t get away from – we do need to save for retirement and for our other goals. We do need to understand our income and what living expenses will leave us room for saving. We do need to accommodate for debt until we get it paid down. But beyond that, put together the best plan that you can and tailor it so that it works for you, and be kind to yourself.

If you have any questions about your own situation, feel free to give me a call. And of course, it’s always fine to forward these newsletters to someone else who might be interested.

p.s. between newsletters I post any updates on my Facebook page. I wanted to call attention to some from the last month:

* I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Dr. Tom Melecki in January. Many of you have been helped by him with your student loans, and he was an invaluable resource and a pleasure to work with. You can see my remembrance here.

* Federal student loan payments have been deferred till September.

* Eviction moratoriums are being extended across the U.S.

Sculptures in the image at the top are the “eggheads” on the UC Davis campus.