Sometimes I think the most fun part of starting a new hobby is acquiring all the things you need to do the hobby. At least that was the case for me when I started knitting 20 years ago. Or coloring ten years ago, which morphed into hand lettering seven years ago and became Bullet Journaling three years ago. I had all the yarn, needles and notions I could ever use. And I’m surrounded by pens, paper and journals.
As a professional organizer, I know this can lead to storage and clutter problems. And indeed when I downsized last summer I divested myself of a lot of knitting and lettering supplies.
But it can also lead to money challenges, can’t it? In the early days of a hobby, enthusiasm for the new hobby can make it pretty easy to spend without thinking about it. But YNAB can help keep you from overdoing it by raising awareness of your spending.
If you take up a new hobby, you might be tempted to categorize the spending in a general category like Fun Money. But I want to encourage you to enter it in such a way that you can keep track of it. If your new hobby is model trains, have a Model Trains category in your budget. That way you can easily see through reports on or in the Accounts how much you’re spending on the hobby.
If that doesn’t feel good to you, you can consider using flags. My husband is learning to play the piano and is racking up some expenses. It’s coming out of his Fun Money category, but I mark the piano expenditures with a red flag. If I want to total what he’s spent on the piano, I just search on the piano flag in all accounts. And then I can click the checkbox on the left in the header column to select all the transactions and see the total.
If you’ve already used up all your flags, you can be sure to put the name of the hobby in the memo of the transaction and search on that word in the memo field to see all your hobby-related expenditures.
Tracking your hobby spending is a good first step. Even better is assigning money for the hobby and checking the budget before spending on it. Then you can spend on your hobby without feeling any guilt!
I have found that after the initial spending when starting a hobby, I become much more mindful before spending. I use the yarn I have on hand (shop from my stash). I don’t know buy new pens unless I run out of what I have or I become aware of something irresistible (which is why have a target set for BuJo Supplies).
You might be surprised how the little expenditures add up. Setting up a way to easily track them in YNAB will help you be spendful when it comes to your hobby. It’s perfectly okay to spend on the things that bring you joy, of course. Just make sure it’s mindful spending.
Leave a Reply