They always put the fun stuff before the shit you have to do. I can't be all on a high horse and say I was totally financially independent at 23, but I also never would have said that I used to travel and live my life. My early adult life was a slog of working to live and pay for education at the same time and while I did have a little money for fun, we are talking a little. I don't think I could have spent a night in a hotel "traveling" without a month of saving fun money. It was also totally worth it for the kick-start it gave me on the rest of my life.
I'm not sure how I became a saver though growing up around so many bad with money people. I still wouldn't call myself a really tough saver anymore, but I maintain what I have and keep my monthly expenses as low as possible (I hate monthly recurring expenses).
I'd never say to not have nice things like a lot of financial advice, if you want to travel, get a nice car, whatever go for it--at the right time. That's key and it's why I have loads of friends and family that have damn good jobs/income that would be at the food bank in a month in their fancy extremely-leverage purchased car if their income stopped.
This is a much bigger determining factor to long-term wealth than people realize. Keeping your monthly expenses low allows you to save more of each paycheck while still allowing for occasional impulse purchases which over time average out and are lost in the noise.
The other day I was looking at bank account interest rates and wondering how I could squeeze a bit of extra return out of some emergency cash, and I concluded that if I did nothing but cancel netflix I'd end up with several orders of magnitude higher return than if I invested that money in the short-term treasuries I was considering.
Yeah as I was reading more of this having turned into personal finance talk, I was really thinking if I was to give some piece of advice it wouldn't be the spiel about buying unnecessary items, or fancy cars, or any of that. It would be about not signing up for monthly recurring stuff.
I had someone just recently tell me I just "need to accept that I'm going to pay $30 a month for a cell phone forever", for the whole payment plan thing. Uh, no thanks. If there's something big enough cost I end up budgeting it as a monthly expense myself and saving it. I could do that with a phone, throw that $30 a month into savings account and before you know it I can buy a phone and if in the meantime the shit hits the fan I've got a little extra in the bank and owe less to the phone company. I've graduated more to using this method on bigger things like cars, but the concept stays exactly the same.
I used to have those discussions with my parents when I started out own my own. They'd talk about the need to do stuff like clip coupons and reuse ziplock bags and aluminum foil. I'd tell them "Or I could drop my housing expenses by $100/month and buy all the ziplock bags and aluminum foil I'd ever need".
I'm not opposed to buying stuff on sale, but it's small potatoes compared to things like rent.
They always put the fun stuff before the shit you have to do. I can't be all on a high horse and say I was totally financially independent at 23, but I also never would have said that I used to travel and live my life. My early adult life was a slog of working to live and pay for education at the same time and while I did have a little money for fun, we are talking a little. I don't think I could have spent a night in a hotel "traveling" without a month of saving fun money. It was also totally worth it for the kick-start it gave me on the rest of my life.
I'm not sure how I became a saver though growing up around so many bad with money people. I still wouldn't call myself a really tough saver anymore, but I maintain what I have and keep my monthly expenses as low as possible (I hate monthly recurring expenses).
I'd never say to not have nice things like a lot of financial advice, if you want to travel, get a nice car, whatever go for it--at the right time. That's key and it's why I have loads of friends and family that have damn good jobs/income that would be at the food bank in a month in their fancy extremely-leverage purchased car if their income stopped.
This is a much bigger determining factor to long-term wealth than people realize. Keeping your monthly expenses low allows you to save more of each paycheck while still allowing for occasional impulse purchases which over time average out and are lost in the noise.
The other day I was looking at bank account interest rates and wondering how I could squeeze a bit of extra return out of some emergency cash, and I concluded that if I did nothing but cancel netflix I'd end up with several orders of magnitude higher return than if I invested that money in the short-term treasuries I was considering.
Yeah as I was reading more of this having turned into personal finance talk, I was really thinking if I was to give some piece of advice it wouldn't be the spiel about buying unnecessary items, or fancy cars, or any of that. It would be about not signing up for monthly recurring stuff.
I had someone just recently tell me I just "need to accept that I'm going to pay $30 a month for a cell phone forever", for the whole payment plan thing. Uh, no thanks. If there's something big enough cost I end up budgeting it as a monthly expense myself and saving it. I could do that with a phone, throw that $30 a month into savings account and before you know it I can buy a phone and if in the meantime the shit hits the fan I've got a little extra in the bank and owe less to the phone company. I've graduated more to using this method on bigger things like cars, but the concept stays exactly the same.
I used to have those discussions with my parents when I started out own my own. They'd talk about the need to do stuff like clip coupons and reuse ziplock bags and aluminum foil. I'd tell them "Or I could drop my housing expenses by $100/month and buy all the ziplock bags and aluminum foil I'd ever need".
I'm not opposed to buying stuff on sale, but it's small potatoes compared to things like rent.