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What I would tell my 20-year old self about money
Psst! Everything you learned about it is DEAD WRONG!
When I think back to my early 20’s, some of the clearest memories are of struggling with money. I had managed to get through university with very little student debt, because I was a scholarship student and I had parents who did everything they could to support financially. I was incredibly fortunate. And I was incredibly stupid when it came to managing my money. Maybe it was arrogance, maybe it was naiveté.
Either way, I entered the working world not giving much thought about how to manage my monetary affairs, my expenses in particular. You see, our success with money boils down to 2 important things: 1) how much we earn and 2) how much we keep. As an ambitious, young student, I was super-focused on number 1. I figured, if I’m making enough money (which I had every intention to do), then number 2 would be no issue. Boy was I wrong.
The big piece that I missed was that number 2 was incredibly important, and had EVERYTHING to do with how I managed my outgoings aka my expenses. Starting out, I figured that it was perfectly normal to have lots of little expenses as a part of daily life. It’s what people did, right? A monthly phone bill, credit cards and store cards, car expenses, rent…..these were all expected.
