Why Having Fun With Your Money Is Part of Building Wealth

We talk a lot about the difficulty of saving money.

About overspending.

About impulse purchases.

About needing more discipline with our money.

But what happens when you have the opposite problem?

If you find it easy to put money aside for investing, saving and the other areas of your Wealth Pie, and even deliberately allocate money for fun every month.

BUT?

You struggle to actually spend what you’ve allocated for fun.

You find spending on growth, giving and investing to be a breeze. No questions asked.

But spending money simply because something would be fun? Much harder.

And because anything left in your fun category at the end of the month goes straight back into investments, you’re almost incentivised not to spend it.

You become very, very good at building wealth... and still struggle to let that wealth support a life you actually enjoy.

🎥 I unpacked this question in detail in this video:

First, being a saver is not a problem

If you're naturally good at saving and investing, please don't immediately decide there's something wrong with you.

That's an incredible muscle you've built.

You've developed the ability to delay gratification, consistently put money aside and prioritise your future self.

Hell yeah.

The last thing I want you to do is take something you're doing brilliantly and turn it into another reason to judge yourself.

Instead, get curious.

Is there actually a problem here?

If watching your investments grow genuinely brings you enormous joy, you're living a life you love, and you don't feel deprived, perhaps there isn't.

There is no rule saying you must spend a certain amount on fun every month.

But if part of you wants to enjoy your money and another part simply won't let you, there's something worth exploring.

 

What exactly are you racing towards?

This used to be a big one for me.

For a long time, part of my reluctance to spend was incredibly logical:

If I invest more now, I'll reach financial freedom faster.

And that's true.

But eventually I had to ask myself:

And then what?

What happens when I finally reach the number I've been racing towards?

If I'm postponing everything I want to experience until some future version of financial freedom, am I practising the skills I'll need to actually enjoy that freedom when I get there?

Perhaps putting every spare cent into investments gets you there a year earlier.

Fantastic.

But if you've spent years telling yourself not yet, not yet, not yet, will reaching the number suddenly flick a switch that allows you to enjoy your money?

Maybe.

But maybe not.

There can be enormous value in starting to drip-feed some of your wealthy life into your life today.

Not recklessly.

Not at the expense of your financial future.

But intentionally.

 

What if you don't trust yourself with money?

For me, there was another layer underneath all of this.

I realised that part of my financial discipline wasn't only helping me build wealth.

It was also helping me feel safe from myself.

Somewhere underneath it all was a fear:

If I open the door just a tiny bit, what if I can't close it again?

What if one frivolous purchase becomes ten?

What if allowing myself to loosen up somehow undoes all these wonderful financial habits I've worked so hard to build?

That's not really a spending problem.

It's a trust problem.

I had to ask myself whether I was still making decisions based on an old version of myself.

Was I still trying to protect myself from decisions I'd made decades ago?

Or could I trust the woman I had become?

That's a powerful question to explore:

Do I trust myself to enjoy my money without destroying what I've built?

Financial frameworks should create freedom.

They shouldn't become cages we use to protect ourselves from ourselves.

 

Maybe your idea of "fun" isn't actually fun

There's another possibility.

Perhaps you're perfectly capable of spending money.

You just don't want to spend it on the things you've been told you're supposed to enjoy.

This was another revelation for me.

There are plenty of things women are told should feel like treats.

Clothes.

Jewellery.

Shopping.

Beautiful things.

Some of them might light you up.

Some might leave you thinking...

Meh.

And that's okay.

You don't need to spend money on things you don't want simply to prove you're enjoying your money.

Instead, ask a much more interesting question:

What actually brings me joy?

Not what looks luxurious on Instagram.

Not what your friends enjoy.

Not what you've been told a successful woman should want.

You.

Maybe it's a cooking class.

Maybe it's doing a jigsaw puzzle on a Sunday afternoon.

Maybe it's travelling.

Maybe it's a massage.

Maybe it's having enough space in your calendar to read a book in the sunshine.

Maybe it's something wonderfully weird that nobody else would understand.

How freaking weird are you?

Go and find out.

 

Create a joy experiment

Instead of giving yourself another financial rule - "I must spend my fun money this month" - try turning it into an experiment.

Create what I like to think of as your  Joy Jar.

Start noticing the experiences, environments and little things that give you greater access to the joy of being alive.

And importantly, they don't necessarily have to cost very much.

You might discover that what you want isn't more stuff at all.

Perhaps what you really want is to use your money to create an ecosystem that helps you be more present in your life.

For me, one of those things is Kahuna massage. It's something I've discovered helps me down-regulate and feel more present in my body and my life.

For you, it will be something completely different.

The point isn't what you spend the money on.

The point is discovering what your money can enable.

 

Your Wealthy Life isn't supposed to start "one day"

We're not building wealth simply to accumulate the biggest pile of assets possible.

Your investments have a job.

Your savings have a job.

Your Wealth Pie has a job.

They're there to support your life.

Yes, financial freedom matters.

Yes, your future self matters.

Yes, building assets and creating financial security are incredibly important.

But so is the human being who's living your life right now.

And to start bringing more of your Wealthy Life into today, you first need to know what that life actually looks like.

That's where WILLOW can help.

WILLOW is our free AI-powered Wealthy Inspired Life & Lifestyle Orientation Wizard, designed to help you get clear on your Wealthy Life Vision, your Big Why, your Break Free Number, your Financial Freedom Number and your Cash Safety Net.

But defining your Wealthy Life isn't only about planning for some distant future. It can also help you get clearer on what brings you joy now.

When you know what experiences, activities and little luxuries genuinely matter to you, that "fun" money suddenly has a purpose. Instead of feeling like frivolous spending that needs to be justified, it becomes money you've intentionally allocated to experiencing more of the life you actually want.

Maybe that's travel. Maybe it's more time with the people you love. Maybe it's learning something new, trying something wonderfully weird, or simply creating more space for play.

WILLOW can help you identify what belongs in your version of a Wealthy Life, so you can start planning and allocating money for some of that joy today, rather than saving all of it for "one day."

Because your Financial Freedom Number becomes infinitely more meaningful when you know what the life on the other side of that number actually looks like, and you're already allowing yourself to experience little pieces of it along the way.

Build wealth. And build a life you want to live.

If you're a natural saver, celebrate it.

If you love investing, keep investing.

If seeing your net worth increase gives you enormous satisfaction, enjoy every bloody moment of it.

You don't need to manufacture a spending problem where one doesn't exist.

But stay curious.

Ask yourself whether you're consciously choosing not to spend, or whether there's a part of you that doesn't quite feel safe doing it.

Ask yourself what fun, play, and joy actually mean to you.

And every now and then, ask yourself one very simple question:

Can I bring a little piece of the life I'm building towards into my life today?

Because financial freedom isn't only about having enough money someday.

It's about creating the freedom to live your wealthy life, and allowing yourself to actually enjoy it along the way.

And that's exactly the kind of wealth-building we focus on inside the Wealth Builders Club.

It's not simply about accumulating more money. It's about learning how to save, invest and make intentional financial decisions while building a life that feels wealthy to you.

 

With love,

Ann x

P.S. If you want to get better at building wealth and using your money intentionally to create a life you love, come and join us inside the Wealth Builders Club. You'll get practical tools, guidance, monthly wealth-building themes and a wonderful community of women learning how to save, invest and make confident money decisions, without forgetting that the whole point of building wealth is to support a life you actually want to live.