JSB - Joy Spending Budget
It’s a concept I came across in the book Decisions That Matter: how to make decisions in the world of endless choice by Adrienne Adhami.
The idea is simple:
plan to spend a portion of your monthly income on things that reliably bring you joy.
Not emotional spending.
Joy spending.
Adrienne makes a clear distinction.
Joy spending is grounded in self-awareness.
It’s informed by a longer-term understanding of yourself.
This brightens my days.
This adds color, beauty, or quality to my life.
This is something I’d choose again.
It’s intentional. Repeatable. Regret-free.
Emotional spending, on the other hand, is about closing a gap.
A gap of dissatisfaction. Fatigue. Neglect. Stress. Something to "remedy" our present discomforts.
Think of buying yourself some fresh berries for breakfast every day because you know they brighten your beginnings so life feels more beautiful from that point on.
Compare that to "comfort foods", overdoing on chocolate at night, not because it brings us joy, but because it helps to mask pains.
It is driven by fleeting emotions, your body reacting to what’s happening right now, that stress and unease.
And it bypasses real self-knowledge, about what will help future you more. It often comes with regret afterward.
One gives you nourishment.
The other gives you a temporary fix, a patch to cover the wound.
That distinction matters far beyond money.
From spending to life decisions
In my coaching sessions yesterday, we spoke a lot about choice with clients.
Not the small ones.
The hard ones.
Career direction.
Future self.
Life trajectory.
Where you’re actually headed, and whether that direction feels right.
And one thing really stood out to me,
There’s no way to make those decisions well if you exclude feelings from the room. I helped my clients to invite them in fully, with awareness, with intention.
We like to think that good decision-making is ALL about logic and objectivity.
But the most life-enhancing choices come from learning to use both, your WISE MIND:
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clear thinking, analysis of all the possible options
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and lasting feelings, like joy, alignment, feeling "it's right"
Feelings aren’t noise.
They’re how the brain stores what matters.
They carry compressed information about your values, your lived experience, and who you are becoming, ready for fast access for the decisions that matter.
When you pair that with thoughtful reflection, many complex choices become…
obvious.
Not always easy.
But obvious, what the right choice was all along.
Over to you dear reader,
Which decisions feel overwhelming right now? Impossible even?
And did you bring your whole wise mind into the room?
The logic and the lasting feeling of what’s right for you now.
