What's up, Amigos? We are already in the third month of the year, wild! As the year progresses, it's crucial that we visit all the essential areas of life. One of the top categories is finances. Every year, many people make new years resolutions to get out of debt and build better spending habits, but only a few follow through. I'm here to help those who don't know where to start and motivate those who can't keep up.
For today's discussion, I will talk about a couple of lifestyle techniques that can help you save $5000 this year, potentially going towards a vacation or an emergency fund. Stay woke, and let's get into it.
Z, What Changes Can I Make In My Lifestyle?
Great question! Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the matter, I want to acknowledge that everyone's goals and situations are different. Take what you can and leave what you can't.
Start With A Minimalistic Lifestyle
In this modern day of age, everyone is competing against each other. This pandemic has taught many people that materialistic things don't matter at the end of the day but we still have some folks that don't agree with it. To be honest, I kind of consider myself materialistic. But in my defense, I only get those materialistic things for myself and not because I want to compete with the world. So, in the urge of becoming famous on TikTok, one day I was scrolling through my for you page and ended up on the minimalistic/simple decor side of the TikTok. Clean and simple things all of a sudden started attracting me. I no longer have the desire to own or buy everything. I just want to have couple of functional and quality things that are worth the investment.
Inspired by it, I cleaned my closet and donated everything that I haven't wore in a year. I am pretty sure somebody else needs it more than me. I started getting rid of plastics. I invested in an insulated stainless steal tumbler for my coffee, an insulated bottle given by my work for water, started recycling every can or anything eligible, replaced plastic shopping bags with reusable bags, and one of my big goals is to start using glass Tupperware but it's a heavy investment so gradually making that change.
Why am I doing all of this? Well first of all, plastic is really bad for Earth and for us. Secondly, this allows us to reuse and not buying stuff over and over again thus promoting the minimalistic lifestyle. Also, trust me, you don't need seven hundred bottles of cologne/perfumes at the same time. You also don't need an extensive amount of jewelry, watches, a twelve car garage etc. If you can use multiple products of a specific type at the same time, maybe then it's worth the investment. But try to sleep on it and see if you can remember it the next day (great hack to determine if it's an impulse buy).
Ok Z, What Comes After Lifestyle Changes?
Budgeting
Yay! You made it through the lifestyle advice. Now, the meaty part of the discussion. I promised you five thousand dollars advice up there, but where is that? If you were reading the article carefully so far, then you would've realized that the advice up there is the mindset for saving five g's this year. It all starts with a habit and intention. Let's do quick maths now:
$5000/12(months in one year) ~approximately = $416/month
$416/30 (average number of days in a month) ~approximately = $13.86 ~ $14/day
$14/24 (hours in a day) ~approximately = $0.58/hour
WOW! Did you see what I did there? I made such a big number look so small and achievable.
If you make an extra $14 every day besides your full-time job, you are looking at a total sum of $416 every month. If you do that consistently for twelve months, watch those three figures turn into four real quick.
If you have more capacity, of course, I encourage you to grow it even more, but 0.58 cents per hour don't sound that bad, especially in this day of age where everything is virtual/online. Now in terms of how you can make that extra $14 every day? We will talk about that another day because this post has already gotten pretty long.
Conclusion
I would suggest that you start with this advice. Change your lifestyle and then create a budget. This year began with a lot of debt for me. My number one priority is to pay the high-interest debt first and then work my way from there. Ideally, I would like to clear my student debt within the first six months, but I'm unsure. I'll update you later this year. But yeah, this is all I have for today. Let's meet up next week to discuss something else.
Till next time, peace!
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