Killing myself slowly, or maybe killing my future self, that’s what I was doing everyday when I used my debit card or credit card indiscriminately for meaningless purchases. Five bucks for a coffee, ten for a glass of wine at the rotary meeting, fifteen for that blouse at the thrift store, extras at the grocery store, twenty for that six pack….. Yes, it all added up but I never was the one to do the math. Why do I say I was killing my future self? I was killing the future I wanted by taking away opportunities, taking away the chance to do the things that really matter to me. The crazy thing is that now that I’ve turned things around, I can see that I still can do most of the things I desire. I still have coffee, it just comes with me in a travel mug. I still have lunch, I just pack it in the morning before I leave the house. I can still have wine, but I know it’s coming out of my weekly budget and once those bills are gone from my wallet, there is no more spending.
So what did I do to change things around? The first thing is I determined what my weekly budget could be. We discussed this earlier, but basically, I simply took my permanent bills (car payment, cell phone, insurance, etc.) and subtracted that from my net wages. I then determined how much I wanted to use each month to pay off my debt. (I’d moved my credit card debt into my line of credit to consolidate it and because it had a lower interest rate.) Next question was what percentage did I want to save? Once I’d set that amount the remainder was what I could spend each week. This amount would be taken out as cash each week.
So far this system is working well. It has taught me to respect my money as I can literally SEE it disappearing from my wallet. I’ve learned to plan ahead and strategize to ensure I have money for things later in the week. If I have money left over I place the remainder in an envelope to dig into during weeks when a little extra is required. The cool thing is I can spend this money completely guilt free. If it’s part of the budget it doesn’t matter if I decide to get a coffee at the coffee shop, or go out to lunch. This is great because guilt was something I was feeling when it came to money….it was buried deep down and rarely bubbled up…but the guilt was there, nonetheless. I freed myself from that guilt by taking charge and making choices. And it’s been easy, that’s the cool part too. It still astounds me that I can change the trajectory of my life with changes that are relatively painless. Maybe it’s the shift in mindset, but once I set my feet on this new path it has felt perfectly right.
My Money Management Journey 