Three things I really love but usually have to juggle between are traveling, photography, and Gyaru (most recently), and let’s be honest: adulting is hard! Bills to pay, loans, debt, small daily or weekly purchases, etc. Now that I’m getting back into Gyaru, I find that the majority of my brand clothes are still in Mexico, so I need to revamp my wardrobe on a major level. With that in mind, I’ve been itching to travel and get back into doing more photography. It was a bit hard to manage all three things until I came across a very useful tip: the 15% rule.

What is the 15% Rule?

I’ve honestly found this rule to be one of the best things to happen to me without feeling buyer’s remorse or freaking out about whether or not I’ll be able to have enough money at the end of each month. The 15% rule is simple: you only spend 15% of your weekly or bi-weekly earnings whenever you want to treat yourself. Sounds simple, right?

Once you figure out what your 15% is, you can think about how you want to prioritize what you spend on. For me, I really wanted to travel before EOY but due to personal reasons, I had to postpone my traveling until next year and instead decided to do some retail therapy. For the first time in five years, I decided to finally buy JP Gyaru brand again – this time through Buyee since most of what I wanted is on Mercari.

With this rule, you can easily set up a plan where one week you’re dedicating it to Gyaru, another to traveling, another to other luxuries, and more! It makes it easy to keep track of expenses and will help to create a bit of savings (because if you don’t have anything else to save up on, you can always set that money aside and save up)!

The 15% Rule and Holidays

Now that holidays are coming up, you can take your (bi)weekly 15% and start planning your holidays shopping! If you’re keen on spoiling yourself with a Christmas gift for example, you can start thinking about how much money you have to spend for yourself without going overboard, or setting that money aside for something truly special.