I’m not very happy with myself. The way I spend money doesn’t make any sense to me. I am so irresponsible when it comes to money. I want things, I buy things. I give no thought to whether or not I can afford it. I really cannot continue my life like that. This has been going on for long enough.
My plan is to buy a house in the next few months. I’m trying to get the deposit together and today I just realised it will take me a couple of months longer than I planned simply because I wasn’t disciplined enough to control my spending over the past few months.
I’ve earned more than the average person over the past 6 to 12 months but I’ve also spent more than the average person — much more. Having a run rate of about £5,000 per month is just not acceptable for a single person living in shared accommodation who wants to get a deposit together to buy a house in a few months time.
I seriously need to work on my discipline and that’s why I’m returning to this blog to vent and write how I feel. I need to remind myself somehow of my goal every single day and motivate myself not to spend money I don’t have.
At the moment, I’ve managed to clear all my debts (including student loans)–which to be fair is a huge achievement. I don’t stop and celebrate enough and I think that is one positive that needs to be acknowledged and appreciated. A big pat on the back for that but I still need to tame the beast of my spending.
I took out the credit card last month and have been slowly spending on it again.
My plan is to save £3000 of my £4500 salary each month. This is an aggressive plan and without proper management it will backfire–which is exactly what happened this month. I stashed away the 3K as soon as I got paid but then continued to spend like I’ve always spent and as a result ended up pulling out the credit card to supplement £1.5K of living expenses. Some of those living expenses should have never happened. Anyway, it’s done now. It makes me angry so I don’t want to dwell on it too much more. What I want to think about is where we go from here. How do I ensure I don’t repeat past mistakes and make better decisions tomorrow, next week and next month?
I’m going to have to take from my deposit to pay the credit card off–which of course pushes out when I can have the full deposit together for the house. This really annoys me because now the earliest I can have the full £50K I need is by November. Apparently people don’t really sell houses in November because of Christmas–another point which really made me irate. If I had been disciplined enough over the past year, I would no doubt be ready by June with the £50K to put down on a house. I shoot myself in the foot the more I continue spending the way I spend. I want to change things. I need to. I need to do something about this.
