Want to help more animals? Start by learning how to budget.

5 min readNov 13, 2018

Written by Caroline Beret, Communications Intern at ACE

Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan from Adobe Stock

Our finances hold a greater power over our lives than most people would like to admit. Animal advocates are no exception to this. While it’s important for us to strive to make dietary changes, donate to effective charities, and engage in outreach, it is our spending that ultimately determines how much money we can donate, how many unpaid volunteering hours we can afford, and how sustainable our advocacy can be in the long run.

Money has been reported to be the most common source of stress in the United States: an estimated 72% of Americans experience money-related stress, and 41% don’t have enough cash to cover a $400 emergency. On top of that, there is evidence suggesting a link between financial stress and health problems such as insomnia, migraines, and severe anxiety.

We deal with enough stress as it is

As advocates for animals, we already carry a tremendous amount of weight on our shoulders. Trying to help billions of animals trapped in a cruel system of exploitation is a challenge — to say the least — and the struggle can be magnified when we face opposition from family and/or friends. Many of us have repeatedly been exposed to the devastating reality of animal suffering, and we may continue to be exposed to it throughout our lives as advocates. Not being able to help these animals as much or as quickly as we’d like often creates feelings of helplessness, frustration, and/or anger. According to psychologist Melanie Joy, this can lead to secondary traumatic stress disorder. In her “Effective Vegan Advocacy” workshops, Joy teaches techniques like meditation to alleviate the stress that comes from fighting for an incomprehensible number of beings who endure almost equally incomprehensible suffering. In light of these challenges, we should strive to eliminate as much extra stress from our lives as possible.

This is where budgeting comes in. A budget is to personal finances what meditation is to mental health. Knowing where your money comes from and where it goes is both the most basic and most powerful instrument in your personal finance toolbox.

When created and managed properly, a budget can enable you to become more resilient, empower others, and have a greater impact for animals. If you’re veg*n, you may even find that budgeting requires some of the same skills as adopting a plant-based diet. If you’re an animal advocate who hasn’t gone veg*n (which might be worth a try!), it’s likely that you can also apply your advocacy skills to take charge of your finances.

The parallels between budgeting and adopting a plant-based diet

When we transition to a plant-based diet, each meal becomes an opportunity to express our goals and values. By gaining control over our eating habits, we can liberate ourselves from the feelings of guilt and stress that are associated with consuming animal products. Many of us reach this point by questioning the system of carnism, the ideology that makes us believe it is normal, natural, and necessary to consume animals.

Once we recognize the impact that carnism has on our lives, we can begin to challenge it. By consciously choosing how we eat, what we wear, and the activities we engage in for entertainment, we can master the skills that it takes to avoid animal exploitation whenever possible. Our consumption becomes more conscious and we learn to say no to products and activities that do not align with our values. In summary, we use creativity, compassion, non-conformity, and our belief in a higher cause to change some of our harmful lifelong habits.

When mastering our finances, we can apply the same skills and use the same traits that help us follow a plant-based diet. A good budget has the potential to align our spending with our values and goals, and to liberate us from unnecessary guilt and stress.

So why do so few people have a budget? It could be that some people regard budgets as difficult to adhere to or even fun-depriving. Alternatively, it might be that they never learned how to budget in the first place. For others, it may be that they are caught up in consumerism, which shapes our perception of what we think we need.

Aligning our spending with our values

Compassion, creativity, non-conformity, and our belief in a higher cause can enable us to see through the cruelty of carnism. These very same traits can help us free ourselves from the irrationalities of consumerism (such as going into debt for unreasonably large houses).

We don’t need to eat animals simply because almost everyone else is doing so, and we don’t have to spend money on things we don’t need simply because other people are buying them. Financial stress should not be considered the norm.

To those of you who think you have so little that there is no room for overspending: you might be right, but remember that consumerism is a powerful system. You are unlikely to be immune to it without conscious effort. Regardless of your financial situation, you could likely benefit from knowing more about your finances.

There are many different ways to budget, so everyone should be able to find a system that works well for them. Check out the list below to dive into the world of personal finance and become an even more empowered advocate.