This evening I spent some time looking at houses on Zoopla and did some mortgage calculations. After a few minutes it hit home to me how much money I’ve been wasting and how much more I’ve got to save. I could have saved much more if I was spending it all on things!
I seriously need to address this. I’m tired of lagging behind. I earn enough money to have saved up a full deposit by now but my lavish and careless spending habits have held me back massively.
This summer alone I could’ve prevented myself from needlessly spending about £7,000. Imagine that. £7,000!
I should’ve been at £21,000 saved by now but instead I’m just shy of £15,000. If I was truly careful not to go above a £2k monthly budget over the past 18 months, I would probably be closer to about £30,000 saved. Instead I’m at half that figure because of my needless spending.
This really bothers me. I hate being this bad with money. I hate the effects of it. I hate that after so long I’ve saved so little. I’ve frittered away thousands of potential savings on things that could’ve been prevented.
But I can’t take that back. I have to learn from my mistakes and not repeat them. But I look at my lifestyle and finances this month and last and I’m doing exactly the same things that erode my savings: spending way above my budget.
I somehow need to change this. I need to change it. I cannot go on like this for another month. I literally have no more ideas of how to stop myself wasting money. I know it’s hard to believe for some people but some of us are serial money wasters. I’m not frugal at all!
I don’t know how to change that. But I have to. I cannot go another month like this. And yet even as I write this I have booked to go abroad this month.
This is what you get for dating internationally. Of course I could have not booked this trip, but that would’ve caused this part of my life (which is also very important to me) to suffer.
Anyway I’ll write more about what I can do to limit the damage in another post.
Right now I just wanted to note that the more i search houses on Zoopla and try to work out mortgages etc., the more I realise how badly I’m managing my money and how much I need to improve. So I’m going to try to do this more and more. Hopefully everyday spend some time either going through houses and mortgages or going through my finances. Doing so is very motivational and helps me realise and attempt to fix my very bad and out of control spending habits.
