How to Indulge
This follows my posts on how to spend and follows a similar train of thought.
Sadly, we are not robots. We cannot put off splurging indefinitely. At some point, we will all want/need to spend money on something stupid/frivolous. It's a basic human emotion that it's hard to put everything aside for months and months with absolutely no tangible reward for your trouble.
This isn't unique to saving/budgeting; it's also very common with regards to dieting. In both cases you need to find your happy medium. You want to save/diet enough that you make progress, but not so much that you're discouraged and give up, or take it to unhealthy extremes. Now, I'm not criticizing people who have no choice and must live on beans and rice for months on end, this is more about voluntary, or semi voluntary extremes (e.g. starving yourself for a 3DS).
Avoid foods unless necessary for health. Interesting foods are so great, but unfortunately they don't last long (oranges being a possible exception and a great option for people buying in bulk!) If you're on an extremely limited diet, food's fine. However, you want to avoid the steak dinner. It is fantastic for one night (maybe two depending on your doggie bag), but it's good for one night, not beyond that.
Instead, choose something that you can enjoy day after day. Books, movies, music, and even certain toys all fit into this category. You probably want to choose an old favorite, because part of the idea is returning to it in the future. You don't want a dvd that you watch once, and it's okay, but you'll never watch it again. In addition, old favorites tend to be available cheap in a gently used condition. While I'm including most media in here, the exceptions would be certain video games and definitely video game systems. If you're getting a simcity - go for it. There's an unlimited number of things you can do with that and still be happy with it. It's a game that lasts. A bad video game might be Professor Layton (from what I understand). In Professor Layton, you solve puzzles, I imagine the replay value for that game would be quite low. (Also, most cookbooks would probably be a bad choice as they require additional payments on food.)
Another category I'd recommend is kitchen hardware, clothes, etc. These are things with a direct use, but are things you don't use constantly. You want something where the novelty doesn't wear off in a few days. If it stays in your drawer/cupboard/closet for 5 days out of the week, those 2 days when you use are going to be a real treat.
The goal here is to accept the fact that we're going to want to buy things to enjoy, even if they're not out larger goals. We can choose to splurge in a way to minimize future spending. We as a species need novelty; we have giant brains so we need something to use them on. This writer recommends choosing something that is lasting, not something that will be gone in a day. In addition choose something that will keep its novelty: this isn't something that you'll see everyday, it's something you'll only see from time to time. You want to keep it special as this will delay the next time you need to indulge.
