The Thrifty Therapist: Music Therapy on a Strict Budget

I am putting myself on a strict budget for the next six months. This will be about as close to a "no spend" time as I can possibly do, and it will be an experiment for me.

Where is this coming from? Well, I recently lost my "entertainment" job - the one that made it easier to put lots of money into my savings and to purchase things that I wanted on whims. So, I am having to look at how I use my primary salary a bit more closely than I have in recent years.

So, to keep myself going, I am going to do a modified version of the envelope stuffing method. This will be only used for entertainment and not for all of my payments. Most of the monies that I have will be kept in my account and will not be using this method for things like my mortgage or insurance or other stuff like that. This envelope will only be for things I do that I use cash for on a regular basis - things like eating out, buying craft stuff, and buying books.

With the change in my discretionary income and my need to be more budget minded, I am trying to figure out how to continue to get the things that I need for my own self-care and regulation while still having enough money to purchase things for my music therapy practice.

Fortunately, one of the benefits of being a vintage music therapist is that I have lots of stuff. Lots of stuff!! I have more stuff than I need, but that's part of being older and a collector and having a family that is trained well to get me things that I can use in therapy. We will see what I get in my gifts tomorrow for music therapy use. I bet there will be plenty that I can use in future sessions.

ANYWAY...

I anticipate that I will have five envelopes in my system: eating out, crafting, music therapy things, home things, and miscellaneous. I have budgeted $300 for monthly entertainment, but I do not tend to spend that much each month on these things, so I think that the budgeted amount will be more than enough. We will see.

The way I understand this system, you start with the money that you have available. I will start with $60 in each envelope. At the end of the month, you look at how much you have spent and make revisions. I plan on evaluating my spending in the month of January to see if $60 in each envelope is enough or if I need to change how much I put into some of the envelopes. I will figure this out as I go.

I can be an impulse buyer, and this is something that does greatly affect my music therapy career. When I see a toy or instrument that I can justify having in my music therapy practice, I get it. I have learned that waiting for things often means missing out on those same things, so I get what I want when I see it. This practice can wreak havoc on a budget as I do not anticipate what I will see. So, having an envelope for music therapy things makes sense to me. If I see something that I want for my music therapy practice, then I can check my envelope to see if I have enough money to purchase it. If I do, then great. If I don't, then I have to figure out what I will go without to justify the purchase. If I need something big, like a new keyboard, then I will save money in my envelope until I can afford that something big.

As I am making plans, there are several things that I am thinking will need to happen in my life that aren't happening now. I will be making more trips to the bank - to take out cash, to deposit cash, to get change. I will be more conscious of whether I want to go out to eat and whether the convenience tax is something that I can pay. I figure that $60 will not be enough for my eating out habit, but it will be good to see. I will be taking out change from envelopes and putting them into my banks. I will be transferring funds from one envelope to another, and I hope that I will be able to figure out some of my priorities in this next year.

We will see. I think that this will help me a bit, but we will see if it actually does. I know some people who swear by this method for bills and salaries - I am not going that deep into this cash envelope thing. I am just going to try this for my extracurricular expenses.

This reminds me of my "university takes all my money, and I have to decide whether I buy meat or pay for cable" days. (I went with meat and streaming services, just in case you are interested.)

I am much more financially secure these days, but I am also adjusting to my new circumstances more slowly than I would like. It is time to become a bit more active in this process.

By the way, thanks to someone who shared their own experience with a cash envelope stuffing budget. It is helpful to know what you found in your journey - it helps me inform my decisions.