My relationship with money can be described at best as volatile. My money has always been my "happy place" to get away from how I felt about myself. Hit a depressing point in my life, go buy the latest gadget. Upset about something, go buy food to eat. Not liking how I look, go buy makeup to cover that up. Nothing could help conceal the issues I was dealing with. Spending money was only a temporary fix to a permanent issue. Yet it had gotten to the point that I felt "triggered" whenever I would see something I wanted it would be in my head and couldn't get it out until I bought it. Thinking that "thing" would help me overall feel better about myself and help me get out of the funk that I was continuously in.
Looking back on my life I truly wish there had been classes taught through high school about fiscal responsibility or had searched them out during my first stint at college.
There is a lady by the name of Tiffany who is known as The Budgetnista throughout the social media stratosphere. I originally heard about Tiffany back in 2016. I subscribed to the emailing list and joined the various Facebook groups. Last year I even bought all of her books but never made an effort to read any of them. This past December I was looking for them and couldn't find them so I decided to buy the Kindle versions of them and started reading one of them this past weekend.
So let me just say that this is information that can be found in her daily emails that she sends out to her subscribers. It's free access so I'm not showing anything that isn't already available or only through a paid membership.
Week 1 is the Money Mindset.
This week will help reset my mind against how I think about money. I never thought for myself that I would be able to save money and live the way that I would like to. I'll be honest with myself and say that I've been existing and not really living, at least not the way I would like to.
So during Day 1 I wrote down 2 of 3 of my Financial/Saving Goals. I had to list the WHAT, WHEN & HOWS.
On Day 2 I had to find a book called The Richest Man in Babylon. I read the third story in it called, Seven Cures for a Lean Purse. When I tell you some light bulb went on in my head. It left me with such an A-ha moment I felt that I really cheated myself with not taking Tiffany's course seriously back in 2016. My assignment was to go through and find out which "cures" were my favorite. I had quite the few that I highlighted on my Kindle version.
The First cure - Start Thy Purse to Fattening
No passages in the first cure really caught my eye.
The Second cure - Control Thy Expenditures
To me this meant prioritize your expenses. Figure out what are necessities and then go through the others that would be considered luxuries that aren't needed at all or as much. Cut back on wasteful spending.
The Third cure - Make Thy Gold Multiply
This means residual income. Continuous flow of revenue. Looking for new ways to grow your wealth through other businesses and/or investments. Yet I have no desire to own real estate...
The Fourth cure - Guard Thy Treasures from Loss
If you plan on investing, do so wisely. I know that I would eventually like to learn about the stock market and how it works. Yet I would need to learn the ropes and learn to invest wisely.
The Fifth cure - Make of Thy Dwelling a Profitable Investment
When living on your own there are options between renting an apartment or owning a home. Yet there is more of an advantage to owning your own home. This is something my parents were informing me about last week.
The Sixth cure- Insure a Future Income
Learn to save enough for when you no longer can work.
The Seventh cure - Increase Thy Ability to Earn
This means the more you invest in your skills and improve them in the long term you will be able to demand a higher price for your services.
Day 3 is about Essential Spending
So on this day only buy what I need. Necessities only, no luxuries. Normally I would have bought something for lunch averaging between 10 to 20 dollars on a daily basis. I would either go out myself or have it delivered. I brought my lunch yesterday and did the same today.
So again this is all so far with Tiffany the Bugetnista. As I have been following along with her through her emails she then suggests another lady to follow by the name of Tonya Rapley, founder of My Fab Finance. She goes into more depth about dealing with money and how to approach it. I downloaded yesterday her PDF called 7 Life Changing Money Tips. I just finished reading it and I will say it definitely helped explain why it's so important to save and how to do so. I could relate to the shopping "triggers" that can happen to people. Sometimes I think at my age it will be too late and I still feel that way. If I could go back 20 years and have a talk with my younger self I would have said to save and learn how to invest. It's hard teaching an old dog new tricks. Yet I am trying to be optimistic about it.
Looking forward to see what Day 4 will bring.
