For most of my twenties, I felt guilty about money but didn't say anything. I made a good living. Not a lot of money, but enough that I shouldn't have felt poor all the time. But somehow, every month ended the same way. I checked my balance and wondered where all my money went.
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I would look through my transactions and see nothing crazy, just a steady stream of $12 here and $25 there. I bought coffee, groceries, and an Uber, and then I had a quick lunch because I was too tired to cook. It didn't seem like any of it was too much, but all of it was wearing me out.
There came a time when I said, "That's enough." I told myself that I would go full "finance bro" and get rid of everything that wasn't necessary. I stopped going out to eat. I cancelled my subscriptions to entertainment. I even stopped getting coffee on the way to work, thinking that would make everything better.
I lasted exactly 18 days before I broke down and went on a mini shopping spree. That's when I understood that the problem wasn't me; it was the way I was going about it. At the time, I didn't get that saving money doesn't mean saying no to everything that makes you happy.
It's about saying yes to the right things on purpose and all the time. I couldn't stick to my old budgets because they weren't made for real people. They were strict and unhappy, based on guilt instead of strategy. I chose to go deeper and rebuild how I thought about money from the ground up instead of trying to fix my life with another spreadsheet or a really hard challenge.
The first real change came when I stopped ignoring the numbers and looked at how I spent my money. On a Sunday afternoon, I sat down, opened my banking app, and looked at the last three months of transactions. Not just the totals, but also the story behind each one. What surprised me was not how much I was spending, but how randomly I was spending it.
There was no plan or rhythm, they were just reacting. I figured out that my income or a daily coffee didn't make me poor. My money was broke because it didn't have a job, a purpose, or any limits. I began to ask myself difficult but honest questions.
Why was it okay for me to spend money on things I didn't even remember buying, but I felt bad spending money on things that made me happy? Why did I think that future-me would be more disciplined instead of making systems that helped me avoid temptation now? Why was I hurting my finances because I wanted a normal life?
That week, I made a whole new plan for how to handle my money. I opened a second checking account just for bills that don't change, like rent, utilities, and insurance. My pay cheque was automatically split up, so the money I saw every day never went to bills. After that, I opened a new savings account at an online bank that I didn't use very often.
I called it my "freedom fund" instead of "emergency fund" because I wanted it to feel like a way to make things happen, not just stay alive. Every Friday, $150 was automatically sent there. Not because I was being good, but because I knew I would forget to do it myself. That one little bit of automation made things easier, and over time, it added up.
When I let myself enjoy money in a structured way, the real magic happened. I didn't stop drinking coffee. I still went out on the weekends. I just made a structure for those things to fit into. I set aside a certain amount of money each month for what I called "joy spending."
As long as I stayed within that limit, I could spend without feeling bad. No more doing maths in my head every time I got Thai food or a chai latte. I actually liked those things more when I knew they were part of the plan and not a betrayal of it. Saving was less about limiting and more about getting things in line. I began to notice places where I was spending money without meaning to.
I was paying $59 a month for a fitness app that I hadn't used in weeks, for example. I also had two cloud storage plans that I didn't need. Someone on the internet told me to cut these, but I didn't. I cut them because I thought they weren't worth it anymore.
That was the key, saving started to feel good because it was based on my values, not someone else's rules. I saved more than $2,000 in four months, and I never felt like I was missing out. I still had dinner with friends. I still bought books. I still had a couple of streaming services.
But now I understood. I knew where every dollar went, and even more importantly, I knew why it went there. My "freedom fund" had more than $5,000 in it by the eighth month. That time was very emotional. Not because of the number itself, but because it showed me that I could be someone who was in charge of their money and didn't hate their life.
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| Credit: www.istockphoto.com |
People think that being financially disciplined has to be hard. That you aren't doing it right unless you're in pain. But I think the opposite is true. Punishment doesn't help people learn how to handle money in a way that lasts. Most budgets don't work because they are made for robots, not people.
They don't think about the emotional side of spending, like the stress, the impulse, and the identity that comes with buying things. Everything fell into place when I let those feelings in. This taught me that it's not about being perfect with money. I still buy things on a whim from time to time. I still spend too much money sometimes.
But now I see it, learn from it, and change. That's the real victory. Hitting a certain number won't bring you financial peace. Instead, you need to build a life where your money works for you instead of the other way around. No, I didn't stop drinking coffee. I didn't cancel everything fun in my life. I didn't become a monk who lives a simple life.
I learnt to use money as a tool instead of feeling ashamed or confused about it. That's what saving $5,000 taught me. Not only how to keep money, but also how to make a system that respects who I am, what I care about, and where I want to go.
What do you think?
What is one money habit that someone has told you to stop doing, but you know you shouldn't have to? What if you made a money system that made room for it instead?
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