Margins
In the spring of 1990, I had closed on my first home. I was scheduled to move in a few days, and I had no money. I had spent every dollar that I made to get into the 1,000 square foot duplex. I mentioned to a coworker that I wasn’t sure how I would buy groceries. She gave me a $20 bill. I had no margin in my budget, but she had at least $20 worth of margin in hers.
A couple of years ago, I had spent the night at the hospital with my late mother. My dog had been home alone for close to 24 hours. I called a friend and asked if she could go and look after the dog. She was able to rearrange her day to go to my home and feed, walk and clean up after the dog. She had margin in her schedule.
Money management experts advise us to live on 90% of our income and to save 10%. Time management experts tell us to only schedule 65% of our day. These principles seem reasonable enough on paper. However, look at how my friends’ having margin in their budgets and time worked out for me. Because the coworker was not completely tapped out, she was able to help me out of a bind. Because the dog-loving friend didn’t have every second of her day scheduled, she was able to rescue my dog.
Not only do we need margin in our finances and time, we need emotional margin. We shouldn’t take on every single project or involve ourselves in every single problem. When we have no emotional margin, small annoyances will seem like crises because we have no emotional room. So, how do we go from overspending, over scheduling, and over committing emotionally? Let me offer a few tips:
1. To instantly create margin in your budget, take out enough cash every pay day for groceries, gas, meals out and incidentals. Whether it’s $150 or $300, when you know that the cash has to last for two weeks, you will spend less. After two or three pay periods, you will find that you have a cushion in your checking account. Leave it there. When an unexpected expense comes up, you will have the margin to handle it.
2. To stop over scheduling yourself, pause before you commit. If someone asks you to serve on a committee, tell the person you need to think about it or check your calendar. Before you click “buy now” for a conference or an online class, figure out what you’re going to stop doing so that you can add this activity to your schedule. Once you get into this habit, you’ll find yourself having extra time to rest, exercise and work on projects that are important to you.
3. How do you stop getting too involved emotionally? You decide that you don’t have to adopt a problem to assist with it. For example, if your coworker is in an emotionally abusive relationship, you can listen to her and help her find resources, but you don’t have to allow her to bend your ear over lunch five days a week. Save your emotional energy for close friends, family and the projects that you know are in your zone of interest and expertise.
Allowing some space between where you are and your limits will help you to stay financially and emotionally healthy, and having some margin puts you in a position to really assist the people who matter the most to you.
