How to spend mindfully & why it is important

1 thing I absolutely regretted was not spending mindfully and not keeping my finances in control when I was in my early 20s. After graduation and starting work, it was my first time seeing cash accumulating in my bank account with step increases every month. Work was not easy and I ended up spending money on drinks, grab, retail therapy, facial packages, online shopping. My mindset was “work is so tough, I deserve to reward myself these things”. It’s true to some extent but the problem was I was not keeping track of my expenses and not investing (so impt when you are young!!). Now that I am 30 this year and have been through a fair bit of work and life, these are what I am NOT spending on

❌Luxury goods

• don’t want to sound like I’m contradicting myself but I do think I am a materialistic person and I’d love to chase for brands for eg I own a Gucci sling bag, my wedding ring is from Cartier, I buy branded sportswear like Lulu, Nike etc BUT I cannot bring myself to spend $10k on Chanel, $20k on Rolex or own more than 1 designer bag

• what helped: thinking of what that $10k or $20k can give me instead. I prioritize experience so I’d rather use that $ for traveling!

❌Buying lots of clothes, skincare

• started to buy only basic tops cos I’m too damn lazy to iron in the morning while rushing to work

• every week I wear the same few clothes, mix & match - helps me to get ready faster as I don’t need to think about how to dress

• used to keep scrolling Lazada and Shopee, get sucked into getting deals etc but just shut off the notif and you won’t even rmb it is 9/9 or 11/11!

❌Expensive facials

• just use retinol appropriately and exfoliate your skin regularly!

• the best anti aging is sunblock, sleep and drink lots of water - no need fancy facials

• I would only go for procedures with machines eg pico laser if needed

❌Drinking, grab

• drinking is so expensive in sg!! Lucky for me, I don’t like alcohol, so it’s easy to cut on them :)

• grab is also freaking so I’d always go back before train service ends - maybe my life is boring 🥲

Over the years, I realized the best recipe for curbing spendings is to stop browsing social media 😅 I practically don’t use ig now and my notif for Ecom apps are off so I don’t get ANY news on what’s the latest trend, as such I don’t crave to buy new things and I don’t even get to compare whether my friends have this that etc.

Mindful spending is so important because it literally determines the rest of your life. Personally, I am not ok to be a corporate slave forever and I am too lazy to start my own biz 💀 So in the next 10 years, I am trying to accumulate as much $ as possible to retire at 40+ and lead a simple life. Again, it’s useless saving those $2 $5 - so just get that bubble tea, add fish for your fish soup, get 4 liao for your cai fan it’s ok. But when you wanna get that 10k channel bag - think twice. What would that 10k get you if you put into s&p500? Mindful spending is important but don’t just save, work on yourself to increase that income stream too. It needs to work both ways - reduce the outs and increasing the ins!

#mindfulspending #Adulting101 #AdultingTips