Here is the thing. I kept putting off buying a coffee machine because I felt like I was wasting money. The cheapest coffee machines are around $20. Buying coffee and coffee filters would probably cost $20 for 50 cups of coffee. $40 for 50 cups of coffee now and then $20 for 50 cups of coffee in the future. What a smart idea, am I right?
But for some reason, the fact that I had to buy those two additional items and go through the hassle of packing my own coffee made me stop myself from buying a coffee machine, even though I was buying coffee for $5 per cup at Starbucks or a local coffee shop almost every day.
Do you guys see the problem here? The thing is I can be so irrational about my finances sometimes when I am doing a perfectly great job with other aspects of my finances. I noticed that it is challenging to do everything perfect with personal finances because there are so many different aspects to it. If one was to write a book about personal finance, then the book would have to be divided into so many different chapters. Therefore I decided that it was okay for me to take some time and make slow progress along the way. That it was okay for me to make mistakes like this as long as I learned from them and I made progress.
The good news is that I finally got a coffee machine! For $5! (I got it from a Black Friday deal and I am sending my rebate out today). I guess all the wait and my indecisiveness on which coffee machine to get kind of paid off, haha.
If you guys are struggling with your finances and too harsh on yourself for making financial mistakes, please remember that we were never taught this in school and that we are all just starting off. Cheers to all of us who are making improvements!
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Sunday, November 11, 2018
Emotional Spending
Hello, all.
Are you stressed? Worried? and/or tired? If you are, do you spend more money than usual? Because I do. And I have been stressed, tired, and slightly worried lately (although the worried part is pretty much gone), which means I have been spending or have been tempted to spend my $$$. Here are a few things I am doing to prevent myself from clicking that check-out button on Amazon.
1. De-stress.
The source of emotional spending is stress. So what do I do to prevent emotional spending? De-stress. It took a long time for me to realize what makes my stress go away. I used to think that doing big fun things was the key for de-stressing and it didn't work well since I would have to do something fun or eventful very often to de-stress. These days, one of the most effective (and cheapest and fastest) ways to de-stress for me is to take a hot shower. I believe that people build up tension in their bodies when they are stressed. So, for me, hot steamy water running down my body takes the tension out, helping my mind to relax. Not allowing stress to build up in my system is the key to preventing emotional spending.
2. Procrastinate.
This is the only place I fully celebrate procrastination! Welcome, my friends, to the world where procrastination turns into a reward, haha. Procrastination is something I have always felt guilty about, but isn't it amazing that I don't have to feel in such a way? Okay, getting back on track. So whenever I want to buy something, I take a break from the places where I can buy things. I close the websites I was shopping on and procrastinate buying those things until I really, REALLY need it. Procrastinating will help you realize if you really need something or not. So yay, procrastination for emotional spending!
3. Review your goals.
When nothing works, this is the last thing I do. I go back to the post where I talked about my financial goals and read them over. This reminds me of the things I need to do to reach my goals, the effort I need to put in to ensure that I can reach my financial independence.
Before I end this post, I want to make sure that you guys know that if you guys end up shopping emotionally, don't feel too guilty about it! It is important for us to remember and reflect on what we did and move on, making a mental note not to repeat it. It is OKAY for us to sometimes not be perfect!
Thank you so much for reading this post, I'm sorry I have been slacking off on this blog! I will make sure to post more things here. Meanwhile, please come check out my Youtube channel, breezytime. Cheers to all of us starting a new work week tomorrow and good luck!
Are you stressed? Worried? and/or tired? If you are, do you spend more money than usual? Because I do. And I have been stressed, tired, and slightly worried lately (although the worried part is pretty much gone), which means I have been spending or have been tempted to spend my $$$. Here are a few things I am doing to prevent myself from clicking that check-out button on Amazon.
1. De-stress.
The source of emotional spending is stress. So what do I do to prevent emotional spending? De-stress. It took a long time for me to realize what makes my stress go away. I used to think that doing big fun things was the key for de-stressing and it didn't work well since I would have to do something fun or eventful very often to de-stress. These days, one of the most effective (and cheapest and fastest) ways to de-stress for me is to take a hot shower. I believe that people build up tension in their bodies when they are stressed. So, for me, hot steamy water running down my body takes the tension out, helping my mind to relax. Not allowing stress to build up in my system is the key to preventing emotional spending.
2. Procrastinate.
This is the only place I fully celebrate procrastination! Welcome, my friends, to the world where procrastination turns into a reward, haha. Procrastination is something I have always felt guilty about, but isn't it amazing that I don't have to feel in such a way? Okay, getting back on track. So whenever I want to buy something, I take a break from the places where I can buy things. I close the websites I was shopping on and procrastinate buying those things until I really, REALLY need it. Procrastinating will help you realize if you really need something or not. So yay, procrastination for emotional spending!
3. Review your goals.
When nothing works, this is the last thing I do. I go back to the post where I talked about my financial goals and read them over. This reminds me of the things I need to do to reach my goals, the effort I need to put in to ensure that I can reach my financial independence.
Before I end this post, I want to make sure that you guys know that if you guys end up shopping emotionally, don't feel too guilty about it! It is important for us to remember and reflect on what we did and move on, making a mental note not to repeat it. It is OKAY for us to sometimes not be perfect!
Thank you so much for reading this post, I'm sorry I have been slacking off on this blog! I will make sure to post more things here. Meanwhile, please come check out my Youtube channel, breezytime. Cheers to all of us starting a new work week tomorrow and good luck!
Sunday, October 7, 2018
How I Cut Down on Eating Out
Hello, everyone! The first week of October has already passed. Isn't that crazy? I feel like I somehow fastforwarded to October from the beginning of January. It feels surreal to me that 2018 will be over in only 3 months. 3 MONTHS.
I want to manage my time better and improve my productivity on the things I desire to accomplish this year. One of them, as you guys all know, is my financial independence.
As you can see from my last month's expense history, I spent a lot of money on food for eating out so this week, I tried my best not to spend any money on eating out. I was successful! Except for one purchase of a Chik-fil-a spicy chicken burger (yum!).
How did I do it? Here are my tips.
1. Plan out what I'm going to eat for the next day. I know I sound like a broken record (meal prep, meal prep, meal prep). However, it does work. I made my own adjustment to this golden rule because I am the type of person who likes to eat what I want and have no idea what I would like to eat on the coming Thursday if it's Monday. Because of that, I made a rule where I plan out one day ahead. I can go grocery shopping more often than before so I will grab things I would like to eat.
2. Make cooking times as short as possible or as easy as possible. I find that I am willing to cook more when it's simple and easy. Now remember, I am just starting to "adult", so my cooking skills aren't honed to the point where I can minimize my cooking times to the max. Unlike pro adults out there, I take a long time to cook a lot of my favorite dishes. So I tend to stick to things I know how to cook quickly.
3. If all else fails, I go to prepped meals at grocery stores. Trader Joe's has a great selection of prepped meals at the cost of $5. Yes, it is usually more expensive than you buying food and cooking but it's a lot cheaper than eating out. Even McDonald's set menus cost around $9 these days. So it will be a win to get prepped meals (which are so much more delicious than McDonald's although I love their fries).
This past week was such a proud accomplishment of mine since I have been struggling so hard to cut down on eating out. I am planning to keep up with this for all of October and then improve on my cooking in November. Cheers!
I want to manage my time better and improve my productivity on the things I desire to accomplish this year. One of them, as you guys all know, is my financial independence.
As you can see from my last month's expense history, I spent a lot of money on food for eating out so this week, I tried my best not to spend any money on eating out. I was successful! Except for one purchase of a Chik-fil-a spicy chicken burger (yum!).
How did I do it? Here are my tips.
1. Plan out what I'm going to eat for the next day. I know I sound like a broken record (meal prep, meal prep, meal prep). However, it does work. I made my own adjustment to this golden rule because I am the type of person who likes to eat what I want and have no idea what I would like to eat on the coming Thursday if it's Monday. Because of that, I made a rule where I plan out one day ahead. I can go grocery shopping more often than before so I will grab things I would like to eat.
2. Make cooking times as short as possible or as easy as possible. I find that I am willing to cook more when it's simple and easy. Now remember, I am just starting to "adult", so my cooking skills aren't honed to the point where I can minimize my cooking times to the max. Unlike pro adults out there, I take a long time to cook a lot of my favorite dishes. So I tend to stick to things I know how to cook quickly.
3. If all else fails, I go to prepped meals at grocery stores. Trader Joe's has a great selection of prepped meals at the cost of $5. Yes, it is usually more expensive than you buying food and cooking but it's a lot cheaper than eating out. Even McDonald's set menus cost around $9 these days. So it will be a win to get prepped meals (which are so much more delicious than McDonald's although I love their fries).
This past week was such a proud accomplishment of mine since I have been struggling so hard to cut down on eating out. I am planning to keep up with this for all of October and then improve on my cooking in November. Cheers!
Friday, October 5, 2018
My Budget Planning
Hello, everyone! Here is my budget plan for this semester. I usually like to plan my finances according to my academic year since my loan money is the only source of income for now.
Here is my September expenses.
Yikes! I had many birthdays and I had to activate a few services for my new apartment so this month's expenses were a lot more than usual.
So here is my plan for the rest of the year:
I will cut down on coffee by making coffee at home. My boyfriend and I are doing better at not eating out anymore. Also, there won't be many birthdays that I have to attend.
My income plan will come together as planned. I must work hard from now on to make it work! I will be planning my income sources as I finish writing this. It will be challenging but fun.
Anyways, it is frustrating to be a student and not work at all. However, this will be a great time for me to improve my budgeting and avoid lifestyle inflation once I graduate in the future. Cheers to everyone who is struggling like me but aspiring to be a personal finance expert.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Living Alone
After 6 years of living with someone who was not blood related to me, I was done with that. I know I eventually will have to go back to it once I move somewhere else more expensive than where I live. Which is going to be everywhere else.
When I decided to take a break from all the hassle with roommates, I came to the realization that living alone is costly. Which means that I will be making unhealthy financial decisions. In order to compensate for this, I looked for one of the cheapest places in a safe area. Then it was time for me to find and buy things I didn't have anymore because there was no roommate who had all those things. Microwaves, vacuums, and all the condiments for food.
For now, I'm putting off buying a lot of things since my amazing boyfriend is letting me borrow his cleaning supplies and donating to me his condiments. However, how have I not thought about this? Well, I did. But like I mentioned above, I needed a break from living with someone.
So here is a list of a few things that are costing me extra, whereas if I had been living with someone else, wouldn't be costing me too much.
-buying things you don't own: like the things I wrote above.
-paying for your utilities on your own: water, electricity, internet, etc.
-all the stuff you want to buy for decorating your place! (I've been going nuts with pinning home decorating items on Pinterest)
These things add up! I have to say this cost me an extra $300 compared to when I was living with other people. This will cost me an extra $3,600 per year with ONLY regular payments. But I am okay with this because I really needed my own space and I calculated this before making my decision. Sometimes we have to make some sacrifices. And I decided that I would take that cost for my personal space.
So if you guys are in the same situation as I was (being tired of roommates), please consider all these costs before you make any decisions! Because once you make a decision, there is no going back.
Cheers to going through a pros and cons list and making a decision like an adult (although mine was not the right financial decision but sometimes we all need to make sacrifices for our sanity).
When I decided to take a break from all the hassle with roommates, I came to the realization that living alone is costly. Which means that I will be making unhealthy financial decisions. In order to compensate for this, I looked for one of the cheapest places in a safe area. Then it was time for me to find and buy things I didn't have anymore because there was no roommate who had all those things. Microwaves, vacuums, and all the condiments for food.
For now, I'm putting off buying a lot of things since my amazing boyfriend is letting me borrow his cleaning supplies and donating to me his condiments. However, how have I not thought about this? Well, I did. But like I mentioned above, I needed a break from living with someone.
So here is a list of a few things that are costing me extra, whereas if I had been living with someone else, wouldn't be costing me too much.
-buying things you don't own: like the things I wrote above.
-paying for your utilities on your own: water, electricity, internet, etc.
-all the stuff you want to buy for decorating your place! (I've been going nuts with pinning home decorating items on Pinterest)
These things add up! I have to say this cost me an extra $300 compared to when I was living with other people. This will cost me an extra $3,600 per year with ONLY regular payments. But I am okay with this because I really needed my own space and I calculated this before making my decision. Sometimes we have to make some sacrifices. And I decided that I would take that cost for my personal space.
So if you guys are in the same situation as I was (being tired of roommates), please consider all these costs before you make any decisions! Because once you make a decision, there is no going back.
Cheers to going through a pros and cons list and making a decision like an adult (although mine was not the right financial decision but sometimes we all need to make sacrifices for our sanity).
Friday, August 17, 2018
Vacation, sort of
Hello, everyone.
I am back!
I apologize about my absence, I was traveling and needed some time to myself. Many things happened.
As I was in my motherland, I was able to not worry about my finance because my parents were sweet enough to give me allowance. It was so nice. However, I am back to that student loan life.
In the next week, I will be uploading my financial plan for the rest of this year. This will keep myself on track and let's see how I follow my own plans.
Anyways, thank you guys for reading this e-mail and let's get started again. Cheers!
I am back!
I apologize about my absence, I was traveling and needed some time to myself. Many things happened.
As I was in my motherland, I was able to not worry about my finance because my parents were sweet enough to give me allowance. It was so nice. However, I am back to that student loan life.
In the next week, I will be uploading my financial plan for the rest of this year. This will keep myself on track and let's see how I follow my own plans.
Anyways, thank you guys for reading this e-mail and let's get started again. Cheers!
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Apartment Hunting
Hello, all.
It's been awhile, because I am busy looking for a new place while also packing for an international trip.
Before I went apartment hunting, I set out with two things in mind.
1. Budget
I already had a budget set, and from there I started researching where I should go. My original budget for rent money was $500. It is very cheap considering the fact that I'm looking into a place by myself (aka live by myself). I would be okay with $50 more since I really wanted to make sure to have the next thing down, which is...
2. Neighborhood.
As a student living in a university based city, I have been around in some areas that I don't want to go back to. I've grown so tired of uncivilized neighbors that I decided to make this one of my priorities when looking into my next apartment. Also as a female living by herself, safety is something I cannot ignore.
As soon as I set these two things that I could not compromise on, I used apartmentfinder.com to narrow down my options to save my energy and gas. It was nice that I had lived in this city long enough to know which areas are good and which apartments are decent since it made my search so much easier and faster. I was able to find 2 apartment complexes that fell into my price range and satisfied my neighborhood standards.
I went to those places and checked them out. One thing I noticed is that apartment finding websites might have inaccurate information. One place I really loved actually ended up being $150 more expensive than what I found on the website.
Because the first apartment I saw was out of my price range, I went to the second one hoping that their price was the same as the one stated on the website. And it was. Apartments' rents differ depending on the location of the apartment unit and how renovated the unit is. There was one property which was fully renovated and still had the same rent rate as the older ones. Unfortunately, someone had already taken that unit. So I had the option of either paying $84 more for a renovated one vs. an old one. I was really tempted to take the renovated one because the old one looks... old. However, considering the fact that I will be at this apartment for at least 11 months, that would be a $924 difference. With $924, I can do so many things. So after a few very dreadful moments, I decided to go with the smarter choice: the cheaper option. I will work something out to hide those ugly cabinets in the old model and make good use of the money I save.
Once I move in after I come back from my trip, I will post about decorating my apartment with a budget. Since I hate having too much stuff (because it gets so difficult to move), I decided to limit myself to 11 new items to purchase for my new place.
Well, if you guys are also apartment hunting like me, hope you guys find a great place! Cheers to your new places. and new starts.
It's been awhile, because I am busy looking for a new place while also packing for an international trip.
Before I went apartment hunting, I set out with two things in mind.
1. Budget
I already had a budget set, and from there I started researching where I should go. My original budget for rent money was $500. It is very cheap considering the fact that I'm looking into a place by myself (aka live by myself). I would be okay with $50 more since I really wanted to make sure to have the next thing down, which is...
2. Neighborhood.
As a student living in a university based city, I have been around in some areas that I don't want to go back to. I've grown so tired of uncivilized neighbors that I decided to make this one of my priorities when looking into my next apartment. Also as a female living by herself, safety is something I cannot ignore.
As soon as I set these two things that I could not compromise on, I used apartmentfinder.com to narrow down my options to save my energy and gas. It was nice that I had lived in this city long enough to know which areas are good and which apartments are decent since it made my search so much easier and faster. I was able to find 2 apartment complexes that fell into my price range and satisfied my neighborhood standards.
I went to those places and checked them out. One thing I noticed is that apartment finding websites might have inaccurate information. One place I really loved actually ended up being $150 more expensive than what I found on the website.
Because the first apartment I saw was out of my price range, I went to the second one hoping that their price was the same as the one stated on the website. And it was. Apartments' rents differ depending on the location of the apartment unit and how renovated the unit is. There was one property which was fully renovated and still had the same rent rate as the older ones. Unfortunately, someone had already taken that unit. So I had the option of either paying $84 more for a renovated one vs. an old one. I was really tempted to take the renovated one because the old one looks... old. However, considering the fact that I will be at this apartment for at least 11 months, that would be a $924 difference. With $924, I can do so many things. So after a few very dreadful moments, I decided to go with the smarter choice: the cheaper option. I will work something out to hide those ugly cabinets in the old model and make good use of the money I save.
Once I move in after I come back from my trip, I will post about decorating my apartment with a budget. Since I hate having too much stuff (because it gets so difficult to move), I decided to limit myself to 11 new items to purchase for my new place.
Well, if you guys are also apartment hunting like me, hope you guys find a great place! Cheers to your new places. and new starts.
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