Posted by Lending Club :: December 19, 2008 @ 6:29 am

Whether you completely enjoy or dread every minute of managing your finances, at some point we are all susceptible to what I call financial fatigue. Recognizing the warning signs and taking preventative measures can help you to make it through such a period.

Financial fatigue is when you’re tired of managing your finances. It can come about for many reasons, but here are a few common ones and how to deal with them:

Managing your finances becomes tedious

The level of detail to which you manage your finances can vary widely. If you feel unmotivated and the task seems tedious, try managing with less detail. The change can be temporary or permanent, depending on your comfort with the new system. As an example, if you’re tired of tracking every penny you spend and entering it into a detailed budget, then try a simpler approach like The 60% Solution, which we mentioned previously here on the Lending Club blog.

Your efforts seem hopeless

In order to stay motivated and manage your finances properly, seeing some progress goes a long way. Doing the work without seeing any results can get old in a hurry. First of all, ensure that you’ve given your efforts the time to generate results. You can’t expect small changes to have big results overnight. If you’ve given it sufficient time and still aren’t seeing results, see if setting short-term goals helps. For example, completely eliminating your debt is a worthy goal, but trying to reduce it by a certain amount each month will give you many small successes along the way rather than one large one at the end.

Other life events take priority

Even non-tedious management of your finances where you are making good progress can take a back seat when other, more important events come along. If you wait too long before resuming things, the task may become overwhelming. Automating as much of your finances as possible will help to eliminate this potential problem. By reducing the amount of manual effort required, your finances will continue to be managed smoothly with little or no effort on your part.

All of us will face times when we get tired of managing our finances. By simplifying our techniques, setting short-term goals, and automating as much as possible, we can limit the occurrence and duration of financial fatigue.

What other methods have you used to deal with financial fatigue?