The importance of saving is drummed into us from a very early age. As a child, for example, you may have had a moneybox and been encouraged to save your spare coins.
As you get older, this extends into saving for university, saving up for a house, saving for retirement, and so on.
But what about spending? While looking after your financial future is indisputably important, so is taking care of your financial present.
Saving can become an ingrained habit that’s tough to break. Equally, spending can be a specific skill, and, like any other, it takes practice and support.
Read on to find out how having a strong financial plan in place can help you strike the right balance between spending for today and saving for tomorrow.
Anxiety over spending could mean missing out on fulfilling opportunities and experiences in the here and now
There have probably been occasions throughout your life where you’ve had to cut back a little, or your budget has prevented you from buying something.
But if this becomes a persistent pattern of unjustified frugality, it can affect your everyday life.
This fear of spending can be deep-rooted, and for some, it becomes so severe that it develops into a phobia known as “chrometophobia”.
While this is relatively rare, anxiety over spending is fairly common.
According to an August 2025 article in Money Marketing, in 2025, UK adults report negative emotions associated with spending retirement savings, including:
- Anxiety (26%)
- Fear (18%)
- Guilt (15%)
If this is you, it could mean that you’re missing out on opportunities and experiences that you could well afford.
This is where a strong financial strategy can help. It would be easy to assume that financial planning deals only with saving, investing, and maximising wealth.
While these are key elements, the essence of financial planning is to help you live a rewarding life – during work, retirement, and beyond.
Living the life of your dreams is a key aspect of financial planning
To start spending your wealth with confidence, it can help to first define your life goals. These form the cornerstone of your financial plan, shaping your saving and spending to help you live the life of your dreams.
For example, they could include:
- Buying a second property or a holiday home
- Spending more time with your family
- The age at which you’d like to retire
- Travelling more.
Life goals are different for everyone, which is why bespoke financial advice is so important.
Cashflow modelling can project your finances over a range of scenarios, giving you increased spending confidence
Once you’ve identified what your goals are, you can map out your financial future, perhaps with the support of a financial planner.
Using a process called “cashflow modelling”, a financial planner can help to ascertain what income you are likely to need during retirement to live your dream lifestyle. Then, they can assess how well your wealth is organised to support those goals.
Using sophisticated software, your planner inputs details of your current income, spending, savings, investments, and pensions, along with your expected income and expenditure in later life. The software then factors in assumptions about inflation, tax, and investment growth to project how your finances might evolve over time, helping you visualise the impact of different life events and scenarios.
Plus, it will incorporate your tolerance to, and capacity for, losses, as well as how much you need to reach your goals. You can adjust these to see how outcomes might change.
Cashflow modelling can give you increased confidence that your savings will support your goals, as well as give you an idea of how different levels of spending could impact this.
While this process doesn’t offer any guarantees, it can offer educated guidance into your potential financial future.
Providing for your loved ones doesn’t always mean saving above spending
Effective estate planning is also a key part of financial confidence. If you’re thinking about how to provide for your loved ones after you’re gone, you may feel guilty spending money on yourself, and building up your wealth could seem like the logical move.
However, Inheritance Tax (IHT) rules can be complex, and simply leaving a large estate to your loved ones could mean you inadvertently land them with a large tax bill.
In some cases, spending some of your wealth to keep within the IHT threshold, which in 2025/26 is £325,000, could actually prove to be a more cost-effective option.
Get in touch
If you struggle with the concept of spending, it can often help to reframe it. Think of spending as investing in enriching your life, in the same way as saving is investing in your future.
If you’d like to talk to us about any aspect of financial planning, please get in touch, and we’ll be happy to help.
Please note:
This blog is for general information only and does not constitute financial advice, which should be based on your individual circumstances. The information is aimed at retail clients only.
The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate estate planning, cashflow planning, or tax planning.
The value of your investments (and any income from them) can go down as well as up, and you may not get back the full amount you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
Investments should be considered over the longer term and should fit in with your overall attitude to risk and financial circumstances.