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By Dustin, May 31, 2012 9:50 am

There is one budget category that can and will often be overlooked, or looked upon as unnecessary by budget nerds. It is so important that I thought it would be worth a feature on the blog. This would be the “Blow Money” envelope.

I hear so many comparisons between diet/exercise and personal finance that I think it might be appropriate to throw one more out there. “Blow money” is to budget as “free day” is to diet. The idea of the free day is to let your mind & body feel free once per week to eat whatever you want. The theory is that it will “trick” your body into thinking it is not on a diet so it doesn’t protest and hold on to its fat storage.

The same theory can be applied to personal finance. Budget has come to be looked upon as a negative and restricting work, much like diet. A budget is simply having a plan as to where you want your money to go, then following through on that plan. But sometimes you just want to be spontaneous. Sometimes you just need that ice-cream cone that is not in the budget (or the diet) 😉

The blow money category becomes even more important when you are married and budgeting together. In our marriage, we have an agreement that we don’t have to justify our blow money spendings. So when my wife wants to go get a pedicure, fine, good for her. If I want to save up my blow money and buy an mlb.tv subscription so I can watch the Braves all summer on my iPhone, that’s just dandy.

So, if you don’t already have a “blow” envelope in your budget – or something similar, create one. Try it for 3 months, then return to this blog post and report the success or failure of your experiment!