Mental Accounting. Short Essay
Mental tax
"You act like someone who lived outside Indonesia", said my father. Living in this country, what I demand is out of touch. I want a neat system; it’s almost impossible. To face a wholesome inefficient system (every day) frenetically stressed me out. I need a way to cope with this mentally taxing country.
The thought-processing
From the book Tiny Habits, the author stated that to create a positive change, it is the approach that matters. If you fail in some areas and resulted in your emotional imbalance, financial insecurity, or fractured relationships, have you considered maybe, just maybe, it is not your personal flaw? Maybe it's a design flaw.
The shitty things of living in influencer-age era is everything became bite-sized, watered-down junk food.
Financial Management
I did not touch my credit card for over a year now. It is currently buried deep in my wallet. It is replaceable with my Jenius Account. This DebtFree idea is actually the core concept from Dave Ramsey, a renowned financial guru.
I'm still violating one concept: 0% loan. I took one 0% loan. (Yes, I'm still learning!).
I started by creating a separate account from my Jenius Account to act as a buffer. By this way, I eliminated all the mental tax involving money and all those empty 'T&C applied'. Here's what I do:
E-card for every recurring payment and online transaction. Basically, e-card is my debit replacement for credit card.
Additional card I named 'Fun Card'. I store all my budget for fun to this card. That way, I could pay for what I want, not only without regret, but also fun.
Flexi Cash to buy something I currently couldn't afford to cash in, minus the shady auto-debit. Again, a replacement for credit card.
Designing your behavior
You will tend to choose what is easy to execute, so make the good habit easier to do than the bad ones.
If you don't have any way to make a debt, you won't make a debt.
Any complex things is a series of simple steps. Focus on the steps.