Hey guys. This is my first post here and I just wanted to share some of my experiences. I'd like to think of it as a baby step of an enlightenment.
I have a pretty decent paying job, and when I was single I never really had to say no to buying something. I've now been married for a little over a year, and it amazes me how quickly money can go. A lot of it is just being sucked up into our house, but I'm okay with that since I'm spending less "down the drain" money (e.g. rent and property taxes) and locking in my payments.
Because of that we've been working on budgeting, and I've found a lot of freedom in trying to stick to a budget. It's gotten a lot better and the credit card shock has been going down a lot. Working on sticking to a budget has fundamentally changed the ways I looked at things. It used to be that it was too much of a hassle to analyze my finances; I didn't like saying no to myself, and my bank account went up every month so there was no big deal. Now I see even a $10 recurring charge as a big deal.
What I've found amazing is how good such a small thing can feel. I decided to downgrade my phone, and it has been a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders. I used to always get flagship phones and think nothing of it. But I then did the math and realized I've wasted probably spent $2000 on flagship phones since I've been working. The idea sickens mean because there's a lot you can do with $2000. Finally my current $600 phone, which I always thought was too big and cumbersome, decided to die on me. So I went to the store and bought a little $150 phone that has better battery life, it's delightedly smaller, and I bet it'll even last longer. I couldn't be happier!
I believe there are two things that make me so satisfied with my latest purchase. First is obviously that I saved a lot of money. But the biggest reason of all is probably that I feel freed from societies pressure to always buy the next biggest thing! I'm now trying to figure out the next societal norm I can break and free myself from spending money I don't need to spend on something I don't even want.
I hope that's encouraging to others out there.
November 07, 2017 at 06:20PM
