Millennial Money Matters: Throwing Money Away
I hope I’m not alone here, but I’m thirty years old and I’ve never kept a proper budget. I tried once, several months ago. It was scary to take a focused look at our finances, but I actually found the whole process oddly comforting.
It didn’t last.
I’m not surprised.
Life is busy. Time moves quickly and money is strangely hard to keep track of. And is it just me, or is something always popping up? Someone’s getting married. Someone’s having a baby. You get a nail in your tire. A group of college friends are renting a cabin for the weekend and have invited you along.
I can stick to a plan like the best of them. But planning for the un-plannable is where everything gets messed up.
Don’t try to convince me that you can plan for that stuff. I don’t know what kind of money wizardry you’re capable of, but unless it’s a solid, rounded out expense, it’s nearly impossible for me. Fluff and emergency budgets never fared well in this household.
I decided on a whim to factor out what we’ve spent on rent in the 6.5 years we’ve been married. If you ever need to force yourself to throw up but aren’t a fan of the finger-down-your-throat tactic, I highly recommend you give it a try.
$81, 040
Keep in mind here, folks, that we got super lucky with our housing for the two years we lived in Buies Creek. We had a lovely house for next to nothing. So that number could be way higher.
How the hell are so many of us making such poor money decisions?
No one talks about it. No one admits that they have no idea what they’re doing. No one advises high school and college students like they should. We’re all taught to keep our money talk to ourselves.
I was always making money. I started working the day I turned 11 and was deemed old enough to babysit. I had a steady part time job in middle school making $100/week. Not shabby for a pre-teen. I spent my summers nannying. I babysat practically every weekend. If I wasn’t in class in college, I was at work. But I never took the responsibility to learn how to take care of that money.
If I’d only made saving money a priority, we’d be pretty damn close to paying off a house by now.
That actually makes my stomach hurt.
I’m not sure I want to know where all my money went over the years. I mean, I have a pretty good idea. But we’re going to take a serious look at the money situation and work through some actual, tactical action steps to get a handle on that slippery green stuff.
Operation buy a house.
A couple important things to note as I start this series:
- My husband and I share our finances 100%. We do not have separate savings or checking accounts. I realize some will argue that is a horrible way to do things, however, we are a Christian home, and it works for us.
- I recently left my day job to launch a business. I did carefully & intentionally set money aside to bridge the gap from my day job and when I’d start taking a steady salary from the business.
- Edited to add (thanks to Myra’s comment :)): we only spend what we have. We no longer use credit cards.
Let me know in the comments below if you keep to a budget, or if you’re a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pantser like me.
