My life is a Mess

I came from an upper lower class family. But because of my parent’s hard work and persistence, they were able to send me to an upper middle class university, which I am forever be grateful. My parents opened a small eatery in our area, they wake up very early to cook and sleep late at night just to sell all the food they prepared for the day. A part of our house was renovated and some of the rooms were open for rent. The money they earn is just enough to sustain my schooling and our daily needs.

                I had some friends in school who are well-off, and they always tag me along whenever they go to the mall to buy shoes, clothes and some stuff. As a teen, I always feel that I am deprive of those material things since we cannot afford.

                When I was starting work, I thought it is time for me to reward myself. The money that I earn should be spent to the things that I wanted to have when I was in college. I got my first credit card after a year of working. I got 2 by the way. So what to do when you have money to spend and a stressful week? Shop and party!

                My credit card debt went like a snow ball. I had loans I am having difficult time to pay off. I feel like I had an avalanche of financial trouble which I am still paying until my 30s. If only I can give up but the financial institutions I have debts with would care. They need their money back plus interest.

                Let me share to you the bad money habits I had so you won’t fall into this debt traps:

1. No financial planning – A wise man named Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” yes I don’t know how budgeting works. So the pay that I got monthly, I don’t know where they go. So the few days after my pay day, I splurge like there is no tomorrow. Then few days before the payday I am like a pauper asking my mum to lend me money. And next month, it will be the same story.
2. I reward myself – Ok hold your thought! There is nothing wrong rewarding yourself, if you accomplish a difficult task. It is fine to reward yourself. But if it became a habit and you are spending a lot of money to reward yourself like shopping, dining out, or spending too much on the things you need, you need to think twice. When money became your motivation to do well, then you are a slave of your money. You can reward yourself even if you don’t need to spend like spending time with your family having a movie night in free TV. Reading books, cooking your favorite meal, or simply giving yourself a well-deserved rest by sleeping.
3. Over indulgence – Sometimes we say “I deserve to indulge myself because I’ve worked hard”. For me, whenever my friends invites me to eat out, I can’t say no, I don’t know why but eating is my kryptonite, even if we spend about a thousand peso for a buffet or a 600 peso ramen. But over eating isn’t good for both our pockets and health.
4. No savings – Because I have already spent my money with food and bills, the last thing I do is to save money, so meaning, if I have excess money, I will put it in a bank. Sometimes, after few days if I see something I like I will buy it from my savings.
5. Credit Cards are my Best friend – I thought credit cards are my savior, because whenever I am running out of cash, here comes the plastic money satisfying my urge to buy. I use my credit card even if I have cash on-hand. I also use it for my Grab (a private car hailing service) or if I simply wanted to buy something. Then I only pay the minimum amount, and next time I know my credit card debts went doubled. Lastly, I don’t check my bills. So I can’t track my credit card spending.
6. I invested to property when I am not ready – With big credit card debts, I braved my way in getting a property, so what happened was almost 50% if my pay would go to my amortization and 76550% would go to my bills that means every month I have 20% deficit on my supposedly spending. In effect, I need to make more debts.
7. My lifestyle – So even if I have to allocate a huge amount of money to pay for my bills and amortization, my lifestyle has not change, I still buy things I don’t need and spend too much on food. Which added to my financial problems
8. I had gym membership – It is right to take care of yourself, and there should be no excuse. We need to exercise for us to be healthy and strong. But if the gym membership is too expensive and you don’t get to use it often, or if you don’t eat healthy and sleep properly, you are throwing away your hard earned money. Remember, the key here is consistency not the cost of your gym club membership
9. I am not consistent – For some months, I tell myself to budget my money and stick on it. A few weeks I am successful in budgeting my money but on the latter weeks, I’d stop and I come back to overspending.
10. I don’t track where my money goes – Planning is not just the key component in budgeting, it is important as well where your money goes, if I don’t track my expenses, there are times that I overspend, and at the end of the month, I don’t know where they went.    

Because of these bad habits. I feel the guilt that I could have spent my pay check to something more important or profitable. Even if I am earning a pretty decent salary, I still feel poor and as if nothing is left for me. There are times that I feel so depressed because I don’t know where to get money. And if I could only go back to my younger years, I would have been more responsible with my money and I would have enjoying my money right now instead of working very hard to earn just to pay for my debts.

Yes, my life is a mess, financially, but all mess can be cleaned up, all you have to do is to know what to fix and you have the right tool to clean it up. You also need a lot of muscles to fix the mess. Barack Obama once said “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you will make progress”. Just be patient and do the right thing and be consistent. God would not give you that huge problem if you cannot resolve it.