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.
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.