Let's Talk Money
Money is something that isn’t talked about nearly as much as it should be. More specifically, talking about how to manage and save money isn’t talked about as much as it should be.
Why do we not learn in school how to budget? Why aren’t we taught how to put aside money for bills, some for saving, and still have enough left over to sustain our daily monetary needs? Why are we not taught about investing?
I don’t know why we aren’t taught about all the money things, but I sure think we should be. After all, we are a money driven society, isn’t important we have the tools to keep up?
Story time.
I’ve been struggling to figure out this whole game of money. I classified myself as someone who isn’t good with money. I very much tried to think the opposite of this as much as possible because I am a firm believer that what you think you manifest and become, but this was a hard one for me to move past.
I’m going to be really damn real, the last handful of months money has come to be a major piece of my anxious puzzle. It felt that no matter how much I worked I felt like I still didn’t have enough. When ever a check was put into my account it seemed to be gone in the blink of an eye, but I didn’t know where it had all gone. My bank account became a constant nagging thought in the back of my head.
And then I did something that was really hard and was something that I don't love to do-
I asked for help.
I asked my dad to help me come up with a system and help me figure out a way to finally wrangle in my finances.
I’m not great at asking for help, or vocalizing my thoughts and troubles (I am much better at writing it out! Makes sense why I felt drawn to blogging, but I digress.) Even this time, asking my dad for help making a plan, I asked over text.
But he gave me a plan and I am putting it in action.
Here’s where I am starting:
*Calculating how much each of my monthly bills is and then multiplying each total by 1.25. Once I have that number I am dividing it by the average number of checks I receive a month (currently it’s 4). That gives me how much of each check I am putting away towards each bill!
Example: If I am paying $80 for car insurance a month, I am going to plan to put away $100 a month ($80 X 1.25.) Divide that by 4 and that means I am going to put away $25 from every check I get towards my car insurance.
*Opening a savings account for each of my major monthly bills. By doing this I can move the money that I calculated from each check right into it’s designated spot and actually see where it’s going and what I have left.
So you may be asking, why are you planning to put away 1.25 times what your bills are? By doing this I have a little extra cushion. I work odd jobs, seasonal jobs and inconsistent hours so that little extra will come in handy when I hit a lull of work or when I decide to run off on another big trip. With the extra money I’ll be able to save a little cushion of money in each designated account to be sure my bills are taken care of.
When laying out this plan with my dad it seemed like fairly common knowledge, but also felt a little overwhelming. I think just the action of facing a problem and starting to fix it can always be daunting. It's been a couple weeks since I've put my system in place and so far so good. It's nice to be able to look at my account at any given time and see where my money is going and exactly what else is left. It's still early enough that it stresses me out a bit, but that feeling is starting to dissipate. I'm going to keep with this system for a while and get into a good groove with it. Plus, I finally have an idea for my next trip, so knowing I'm actually focusing on saving money means I can make it happen!
After I roll with this system for a while, it'll be time to sit down with Scott (yes, Scott is my dad and yes, I call my parents by their first names) again and learn about the next step- long term saving and making investments...