The past couple years I have not been so frugal. I have suffered from lifestyle inflation. I moved to a big city, so rent went up, and cost of living got more expensive. I was making more money, and while I was never living beyond my means and I have no debt (due to prior frugal habits helping me to pay off $22k college debt), I got into the habit of eating out way too much, never bringing lunch work, buying $5 lattes every morning, going out for drinks, etc. So I haven't been saving that much either.
The kicker is that I then started to having to manage a chronic health condition and ended up spending thousands of dollars (over the course of a year) on physical therapy. This condition affected my ability to do my job, so it felt 100% necessary. At this point, I felt like I had to pay for this PT or I couldn't work. I basically felt like I had no control over my finances, and there was a lot of paycheck churn.
Thankfully, I have made a lot of progress in PT. And all the money spent was a worthwhile investment in my health. My situation is not so dire anymore. But still, this mindset that I don't have control over what I spend persists. And now that I' thinking about it, it wasn't really caused by the health situation. It was a mindset that I had prior. Especially with food, I often have trouble controlling an impulse to get takeout, and then end up spending way too much, feeling bad about it, and then trying to do better and never succeeding. This is what I aim to fix.
I think I'm going to try using YNAB. I have tried it before (way back when you entered everything manually) and I agree with the philosophy of it, but I've always found it a little confusing to be honest. It doesn't fit with my mental model of how I spend money - but maybe that's the point, is that it forces you to think differently about money, because the way I currently think isn't working for me.
I am going to try to change one habit at a time, since cold turkey never works :). First up: eating breakfast at home everyday instead of winging it and spending $8 on coffee and a pastry with no plan, like a barbarian.
Thanks for reading, really just wanted to get my thoughts out and share my experience. I really enjoy this community.
EDIT: A word.
March 10, 2019 at 01:49PM
