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Grabbing a coffee in town, a spontaneous movie night, or a weekend getaway doesn’t have to ruin your finances. All it takes is a well-planned budget and controlled spending so you can always find room for little pleasures. Here’s how to do it step by step.
What Percentage of Your Budget Should Go Toward Pleasures?
The most popular way to calculate this is the 50/30/20 method. According to it:
- 50% of your budget should go toward needs. This includes bills, food, transportation, insurance, and other essential expenses.
- 30% can be spent on wants.
- 20% should be set aside as savings.
To know exactly how much money you really have left in your account, write down all your fixed monthly expenses. That includes electricity bills, phone bills, rent or loan payments, etc. You can create a spreadsheet in Excel or use one of the available budgeting apps like Wallet or Notion. Whatever is left should be divided between savings and pleasures. But note: the 50/30/20 method only works if your essential expenses don’t exceed 50% of your income.
If they do, you can adjust the ratios to better suit your situation or use another method, such as zero-based budgeting (ZBB). With ZBB, you plan exactly how every single unit of your income will be spent ahead of time. That’s where the “zero” comes from—after allocating your income across expenses and savings, you’re left with zero. This means you know exactly where all your money goes, making it easier to manage your budget and carve out space for little indulgences.
Pleasure Budget – Break Down Your Spending into Subcategories
It’s also worth dividing your small (or big) pleasures into categories. Think about what you enjoy spending money on, and try to write it out in a list. It might look like this:
- Dining out
- Coffee
- Entertainment (concerts, exhibits, parties)
- Shopping (clothes, cosmetics)
- Hobbies
In the following month, track exactly how much you spend in each subcategory. This will not only give you better control over your finances but also help you understand what truly brings you joy. If you notice you’re spending most of your “pleasure” money on dining out and almost nothing on “culture,” you can shift the funds between categories. You may also discover you’re unknowingly spending a lot in one area and, as a result, missing out on something more meaningful to you—like your hobbies.
The greatest advantage of this system is that you can consciously save in one area to gain more in another that brings you more joy—like clothes or nights out. If you don’t use your entire “pleasure” budget one month, you can carry it over to the next and treat yourself even more then.
How to Increase Your Budget for Pleasures
What if, after carefully calculating all your expenses, there’s still not enough left for pleasures? Try finding ways to save better. Start with some simple tricks: buy your favorite cosmetics in bulk during promotions, take advantage of discount days like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or holiday sales and plan your bigger purchases then.
Also, check if you really need all the subscriptions you’re currently paying for. Savings can be found in unexpected areas, too—like not having to pay a rental deposit. You can do that through a rental deposit surety service like Bingo-Rent. How does it work? You pay a starting and administrative fee, plus a subscription that amounts to 12% of the required deposit during the rental agreement, and Bingo-Rent issues a surety of the rental deposit to the landlord on your behalf.
If your deposit is 4000 PLN, the subscription totals 480 PLN annually. You can pay this upfront for the whole year or in monthly installments. This way, you don’t have to freeze your deposit money and can use it however suits you best—whether for savings or small (or bigger) pleasures.
