From the time that I first got a little cash as a teenager, I’ve been the type to save my money instead of spend it. Really, all I ever spent my money on when I was younger was bus fare and clothes every now and again. I really didn’t need to use money for anything else. I much preferred that I had money saved up that I could use for other things.
That was the case until I moved to London and quickly realised that even if I didn’t want to splash the cash, there’s a big price when you’re living in such an expensive part of the world. Rent was a lot. The bills were too. It was a massive strain. Ever since I got a job in London, it’s basically been a struggle to stay afloat.
While I’ve never got into a real bad financial situation (probably thanks to my fiancée) every month I have had to try my hardest not to dip below £1 in my current account. January is always the worst because I’ve got so many people to buy for and when I was living in London, I liked to give my family back home great presents, so they thought I was doing better than I actually was.
Saving money was an afterthought.
I had a nice, healthy amount in savings a few years ago, and I’ve basically been steadily chipping away at it in order to make sure that I didn’t go into my overdraft.
In terms of my financial state right now, I’ve got a big loan that I took out when I was made redundant which is going to take YEARS to get rid of. Then I’ve got a credit card that I don’t actually use and is at a perfect £0 balance. Then my current account has been straight up struggling.
I work for myself but I decided that I should just pay myself the amount that I was earning at my last proper job, so that I’m not putting any strain on the business. That’s the last thing I would want as my business is everything now. I could never go back to work after all of these months of seeing how great it is like this.
Thankfully, my expenses have gone down a bit since I moved out of London and I’m finally able to put a nice chunk away each month. And it feels good. It’s especially important that I do it because we need a deposit in order to get the in-laws out of this house. So let’s just hope I can build up my business even more so I can increase my pay soon, and it has a knock-on for everything else.
