Day 3
It’s Saturday today, and I needed to run some errands. For one of the errands, I needed to go to the shopping center to return a gift I received for my birthday. I had all the intentions of going earlier today but opted for a walk instead.
I was a little worried that if I return my gift, I’ll end up buying something I really don’t need. This was a good time to remind myself of my goal towards total financial freedom. It’s not towards a pair of new shoes adding to my already abundant collection.
On my walk today, I was thinking about going to a nearby coffee shop. When I reached the coffee shop, I thought about having lunch at the restaurant next door. Then I realized, I already had coffee, and there’s so much food at home I could eat. So I just walked right past both and continued to enjoy my audiobook. Walking right into financial freedom, am I right?!
As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog (click here if you’d like to read it), I’m currently listening to the audiobook The Housemaid by Freida McFadden. It is so so good! I cannot stop raving about this book.
I just got to what I think is the middle section of the book, and it just keeps getting more suspenseful! Here’s the link if you want to check out the actual book. But let me tell you, the reader on the audiobook does such an amazing job. I don’t know if it’s because of the reader that I’m more interested in the book.
It was 3pm when I got back home from my walk. I started my walk around 1pm. I didn’t realize how long my walk was. By the time, I got back I didn’t want to go to the shopping center anymore. Instead, I thought about calling my girlfriend to go out for dinner. But remembered, we’re supposed to go out tomorrow for another girlfriend’s birthday.
I know it sounds like I’m really restricting myself and penny pinching. But I spend a lot on eating out. This is a habit I really want to change.
I’d rather pay for fun or special events with friends and family. Instead of making a habit out of eating out or take out on a regular basis.
Honestly, I don’t even know how I got to this point of wanting to eat out a lot. When the girls were younger, I cooked almost everyday. For one, it was to make sure my girls were eating a healthy meal and two, it really helped my save a lot of money feeding a family of 4 on 1 income. My kids were always well fed.
They even thanked me recently, and said they appreciate the way they were raised to have a healthy relationship with food.
I want to go back to that time I cooked a lot but just the thought of it kind of turns me off. I think it happened when my youngest went off to college. For three full months, I had the house to myself before my middle daughter moved back in from graduating college.
I remember the relief of not having to think about what to eat everyday. I remember getting into bed one night and realizing I forgot about dinner for myself. But I was fine with it. In fact, it even felt like a mini vacation. I think the hardest part about cooking was thinking about what to eat. every. single. day.
You know what I didn’t realize though? The obvious was that I saved a lot of money. But I also benefited from the healthy meals too.
When I got home from my walk, I took some frozen meat out. Slowly but surely, I’m going to get back into cooking again. After all, it’s a lot healthier than eating out for both for my body and bank account.
In the past two days, I haven’t spent anything. Again, I’m not trying to deprive myself. But I want to be more aware of my money habits and create a system that will get me closer to achieving total financial freedom.
I know it’s not going to happen overnight. And I know that it’s not going to happen just because I decided not to buy coffee or lunch.
But what I do know, is that I need to be more aware of my money habits and create change that will benefit my financial future.
Tomorrow, I’m supposed to be celebrating a girlfriend’s birthday. She’s turning the big four oh (she’s the youngest one in our group of friends). It’s a big birthday for her. Because of that, her gift is a little bit more expensive than usual.
I don’t know how much I owe for my part of her gift yet. We split it amongst the four of us. My other girlfriend who bought the gift hasn’t told me yet. I’m guessing my portion will be around $100. That $100 is not including a trip to Carmel, CA tomorrow which is what birthday girl wants to do.
Since I didn’t return my birthday gift today (there’s a snag in the jacket if you’re wondering why I want to return it), I decided to work instead. After I finish this post, I’m going to work a couple hours overtime at my full-time job.
Oh and by the way, I still remember about the leak in my garage (I mention it in yesterday’s blog which you can check out here). I was supposed to take care of it today. It might be my washing machine which was repaired several months ago. Since it doesn’t seem emergent right now, I’ll deal with it tomorrow or Monday.
I read an influencer/money coach’s post today on IG. She lists things she’s cutting out of her budget and things she’s spending on in 2025. One of the things she’ll be cutting out is spending on new clothes. She also mentioned she will be cutting out travel for the year (something I’m considering too). Her name on IG is @clobaremoneycoach. In case you’re interested in checking her out.
I too want to stop spending on clothes. It used to be beauty products. But several years ago, I decided I had so many beauty products, I honestly didn’t have space for more. I could never get through all of my beauty products before they expired.
I will admit, at first, it was a challenging transition to cut out beauty products, especially during the Sephora sale but after awhile it got easier.
You know what I’m realizing now as I write this? Since I made a conscious effort to decrease my spending on beauty products, I have been consistently gifted so many in return! You can check out my blog post 9 Beauty Products For Natural Looking Makeup Over 40 People by clicking here.
Now, I know I have a bad habit with buying too many clothes. And guys I get it, it doesn’t help with landfills nor does buying beauty products. I am very aware of the waste it creates. So I thought, if I just buy clothes from Poshmark or Mercari going forward, it would help our planet and help solve the problem of waste. Also, it would really make me think about my purchase. Thus, saving me money…
But it doesn’t nor does it help me learn how to manage my money. You can read my very first blog post about money by clicking here. It gives you a glimpse as to how I got into this mess.
Shopping can really be an addiction.
I’ve tried to communicate that to friends before, and the response I’d get back was something to the likes of, “At least it’s not drugs or alcohol. You could be wasting your money on something more toxic. So you’re good.” And that statement right there, basically, sugar coated a problem I was trying to confront.
Growing up, I was raised around drugs and alcohol, so when this statement was made I too agreed that, “Right, shopping isn’t that bad.”
I’m not saying that clothes is what caused me to go into major debt. In fact, it was a lot of little things that did it and clothes was just a part of it.
In yesterday’s post, I wrote about how I’m learning to create a system to attain total financial freedom. I think starting these journal entries will really help me stay accountable (look at those unintended puns) and more organized with my finances.
When it comes to clothes shopping, I don’t want to completely stop. I do really love fashion and how it allows someone to be creative. But I do want to be more mindful and intentional about what I purchase.
A lot of my clothes have been impulse or bored buys. Bored buys, meaning when I’m at home and doom scrolling online. Then a quick moment of “Oh let me look for this xyz…because I actually really do need it.”
During this holiday season, I purchased gifts in cash. I even ventured into the mall for the first time in a long time. Something I haven’t done around the holidays in forever!
I will admit, it was a bit nostalgic and really got me into the holiday spirit. That’s when I had a little epiphany. I decided that if I wanted to shop, I’d only do so in store. If I want to do so in store, I will need to save the amount of money I want to spend. Basically, I’m just creating a budget when you think about it. But it sounds better this way.
I even told my daughters to save some money during the next two months. This way, we can all take a trip to a really nice mall and have a day of shopping. It’s kind of exciting knowing that we have this day planned together even if it’s just to the mall.
When the girls were little, we loved going to the mall. It was such a fun pastime for us. At the time, I never spent much because I didn’t have credit nor did I make a lot of money. But we would walk around for hours looking at everything.
Once in awhile, we’d make a small purchase or two. It was such a treat! During that time, I rarely online shopped. Fast forward to today, and we’re consistently getting packages from Amazon and/or Target.
When I decided to stop buying beauty products, I remember specifically asking myself a list of questions. Do you really need this? Why do you think you need this? Are you buying it just because it’s on sale? Do you have something else that’s similar you can use? And…Do you really need more clutter?
That last question is the one that got me really thinking. All the other questions, I was able to find an answer to get me to buy.
I am sick of clutter. When you share a home with three other girls, it can pile up fast. You would think, how can something as small as beauty products cause so much clutter?
Well, that’s easy it can take up space in your drawers, cabinets, or if you have a thousand makeup bags, they could be lying all over your home partially full of beauty products. One day, you’ll find another makeup bag in a purse you forgot about full of expired products.
So here we are, Day 3. I think I’m finally starting to create a system to go along with my goal of total financial freedom.
System One: Really think about any clothing purchases going forward. And instead of impulse buying or online shopping, save money to go shopping in person. And ask yourself, “Do you really need more clutter?”
There you have it folks, the first part of my system in place.
I really need to think about a system for education. This year, I really want to invest in learning more about blogging. So far I’ve been tracking my spending and doing pretty well.
The first time I attempted to blog, I wasted so much money. I had my middle daughter set me up and do all the technical things. When I went in to start blogging, I had no idea what to do or how to start. I ended up not do anything, and basically wasted a little more than $200.
This time around, I’m more mindful of making a purchase. There’s a bunch of courses I’d like to take but the majority of these courses cost about $200.
In fact, I just bought a course about affiliate marketing and have only completed 30% of the program. I will definitely finish that course first before purchasing another, I know. But there’s this other course I’m interested in that’s on sale right now and it won’t last long…Ugh, that’s really how they get you huh?
Deep breath…let’s just take it one day at a time.
I’m noticing a pattern here. And that’s, if I save in one area, I tend to shift my spending into something else. This revelation is actually a good start, right?. Now, how do I take action from the lesson learned?
I mean, the fact that we got system one written down is a success! Actually, I have two parts of my system now towards total financial freedom and that’s journaling my progress.
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As always, thank you for reading. Let me know if you have any money budgeting tips and tricks.
Love, Sutivi.
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