What better way to start a blog about random shit than the very source of how these random shits came about? What am I talking about? Finance, my friend. You know the income, them monies, etc. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a finance blog. This is probably the only finance post you’ll see unless I decide to update you on how I’m going with my finances.
When you’re 21 (like me at this point of time), this is most likely what I like to call the ‘splurge age’ where honestly… half the time we have no idea where our money goes. Sad, but true. Don’t kid me, y’all know what I’m talking about. It doesn’t even necessarily have to start at the age of 21. Some even as young as 13 years of age—bless their soul and their parents wallets.
So what were we talking about?
Ah yes! Money.
Please note that these are from experience, this may not apply to everyone. These are just things that work for me.
1. Pay Your Bills
No, I mean like… literally right after you receive your pay. Once you pay all your outstanding bills that are due before your next payday, you’ll be worry free until your next pay comes. Get it over and done with in one day.
It’ll hurt to see all that money come out immediately, but honestly after doing it for the past few months it no longer hurts like a mofo.
This is especially helpful for people who are paid on a monthly basis. My sister gets paid on a monthly basis and if she doesn’t get rid of all her outstanding bills for that month she’ll forget about certain bills. And y’all better be praying that she’ll have enough money in her bank account when those bills hit her like a freight train later in the month.
I get paid on a fortnightly basis, so it’s not as bad to keep track of my bills and which bills I’ll need to pay within the fortnight.
2. Multiple Accounts: Lifesaver
Look—if you have just a whole bunch of money on one single account how are you supposed to know how much of it is for paying your bills? How are you supposed to know how much of it is for everyday spending? And since we all have Paypal, sometimes that shit just holds the purchase and it doesn’t process on your card till a day or two later and it just escapes into the sunset with your money when you least expect it.
So please, open more than one account. One that doesn’t have any monthly fees for multiple transactions and transfers between accounts.
This is basically how I’ve set out my bank accounts, and I’m not joking when I say they are named like the following.
Wallet: This is basically my everyday and billing account. It’s the “OG” account if you know what I mean… also known as my first account that I opened up with this bank, okay? I’m just trying to give you a little leverage. I have all my bills online stores, Paypal, Afterpay, transport billing (etc.) all linked to this account. It’s also where my pay comes through every fortnight.
Piggy Bank: This is the Queen B account, as in… I ain’t ever going to touch the monies in this account or else I’ll be off with my head! (Yes, I made an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ reference.) Every time my pay comes through, I put aside a large amount of money to my savings and never touch it, ever. Or else I get fees… but you know what I mean.
Reserve: This account contains my “reserves”, I basically always have $200 in it no matter what (no more, no less). And if I’m low on cash in my Wallet account then I’d—what I like to call—”tap into my reserves”. Not that I really want to, because if I ever do that means I’ll need to put that money back into it when I get paid. Basically like a personal overdraft but without the risks. So if I borrow $70 from my reserves, next time I get paid I’ll put that $70 back into the account.
Bills: This is an account where I can put aside money for future bills that I can’t manually pay, since it’ll charge me automatically on a fixed date. So things like monthly subscriptions and my train card that I’ve put auto top-up for. I also chip in $30 for the internet on the 1st of every month. This is helpful to ease off the anxiety of not having enough money when you get charged. It’s happened to me before and I was in the negatives.
Basically, I like to be organised. Give it a try.
3. Financial Apps Don’t Work
Believe me, I’ve searched and tried but honestly I find myself using these expense tracker apps or financial budget apps less and less each passing day. Unless you want to log in every little thing for the rest of your life, please do so if it works for you.
The whole point of these apps is to pretty much be like, ‘hey look—y’all spending way too much on food’. Which I’m not really complaining about because I love food… not the point, Saki. Moving on.
Why not, just spend less money. Also here’s a few graphs to be insightful of your bad spending habits. Moral of this section.
4. Phone Calendar
I honestly didn’t think I’d ever find my phone calendar useful with managing my money but it has come to prove me wrong for the past few months.
I use it heavily to track down what days I’m working and how many hours I’ve earned in that specific workday. Then after a fortnight ends, I like to calculate and bring up an estimate of how much my pay will be for the fortnight. (The life of a part-timer, and shut up people on salary, okay?)
I note done all my bills on the days I’ll pay them off to get a scope of just how much of my money goes towards my bills.
Basically, my phone calendar is a much more simpler version of a finance app without the unnecessary features. I think the fact that it’s much less complex almost forces you to have complete control over your transactions.
5. Needs > Wants
Honestly, how many times have we heard this when we were younger and our parents were attempting to convince us that buying our needs is much more important than buying our wants (in the end they lose and they buy that toy we wanted).
My budget is basically the value after all my expenses are deducted, which never really amounts to much but enough to last me until the next fortnight. It’s usually in the 3-digits.
But I always have this nagging thought that even a 3-digit value is too much for a budget especially if you’re still living with your parents. I have a special anecdote about this that I wanted to share to close this article.
I was conversing with my manager over my lunch break (I know) but she so happened to be on break too. She’s in her late 50s or early 60s and she has a daughter a few years older than I am who is getting ready to settle down with a partner of her own. My manager was telling me how her daughter expressed her lack of desire to stay at her mothers or her mother in law’s home when she gets married to her fiancé.
My manager then sighed and said something I don’t think I’ll ever forget, she said, “I told my daughter—’while your father and I are still working, you should take advantage of us.'”
She then went on to say how a parent would be hesitant to let their child leave them without being certain of their future and/or direction in life.
And I thought, I’d probably be the same way towards my child.
So as vulgar as it sounds, take advantage of what your parents have and are still providing for you. True, there are some parents who unfortunately don’t feel the same way and wish for you to leave them as soon as possible but we all have different situations and I’m sure they have a reason for feeling that way.
But I’ll only be saying this (I hope) to people who actually do want to be independent with their finances and future ventures.
On that note, I’ll leave you with my well wishes.
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