4 Ways You Can Afford to Have Fun When Your Wallet Says Otherwise

Wanting to know whether or not you can afford to have fun?

Traditionally, the ‘fun’ portion of your budget is where any leftover cash goes. Fluctuating month to month, depending upon where your financial responsibilities lie. This can be a drag, especially when fun is the secret sauce of life. Instead of giving your fun times your leftovers, why not find fun ways to generate money so that you can start saying yes to having fun, more than you say no. 

Using a Personal Loan

Traditionally, taking out a personal loan to fund your social life would not be advisable, however, consider taking out a personal loan to get the other areas of your budget in check, and use the recovered funds to treat yourself from time to time. Personal loans are great if you need money quickly and you could use it to consolidate debt that has a high interest rate. If you have good credit, the interest is typically lower than credit cards. Depending on the loan, it is typically unsecured and does not require you to have collateral. You can take out a personal loan from a private lender to meet your financial needs.

Have an in Person or Virtual Yard Sale 

You might be shocked to learn how much money you can generate from simply decluttering your home. While the general public likely is not going to give you top dollar for mismatched or overly used items that are well past their prime, things like books you no longer need, home décor items you’ve moved past, and the extra 12 wine glasses you have but never use, can provide you with the cash you’re looking for to spend on fun times. 

If holding a yard or garage sale in person is not your thing, there are many online opportunities to sell your things. Many of these platforms make it super easy to sell items with little time commitment on your end. You can list goods, haggle with prospective customers, and even leave the items on your porch for them to pick up. Then you just sit back and collect your payment. Another great element of this strategy is that you can be as aggressive or lax as you wish, there are no rules or minimums in terms of how active you need to be as a seller. 

Saving Your Spare Change

You might also be surprised to learn that you probably have more spare change laying around the house than you realize. You can make home cleaning fun by looking in unsuspecting places like couch cushions and coat pockets to find loose change to add to a savings jar. You have probably heard of lifting up the couch cushions to seek out spare change as more of an old wife’s tale, but the truth is, spare change adds up. While you might not catch a windfall from your living room sofa, a habit like paying cash and never spending your coins can yield a significant amount at the end of the month. 

Since this will feel like found money, it’s perfect for spending on fun and social activities. Not to mention, it is an effortless way to save, since in each instance, 5 cents here and 75 cents there won’t do you much good but accumulated over a period of time it sure will. And there are also apps that will round up each purchase and put that additional money into an account for you. 

Using Layaway

You may have heard about Christmas layaway programs in the past, but you can still use a version of this option. It prevents you from going into debt since you are paying for the items but do not receive them until they are paid off. You can pick out the items and put a deposit down on them. Whenever you are there in the future, you can make more payments until the items are paid off in full. That way, you can be sure the items will not go out of stock before you are able to afford them. 

This strategy is great for all the tangible goods that are more of a need than a want. It is certainly fun to redecorate your home, for example, but not everyone has disposable cash to buy new furniture on a whim. With layaway you can have the thrill of picking out new things without feeling like you are bleeding unnecessary cash and operating under a time crunch in terms of product availability. 

Afford to Have Fun on Any Budget!

Whether or not you think you can, with a little bit of wiggle room, you can afford to have fun on any budget! So whether you are using layaway, or have a yard sale, you can do it if you follow these helpful tips.