Continuing with the theme of a more honest, open, and authentic internet; Let's talk about money. Up there as one of the most taboo things to talk about (much less write a half-baked blog post about before blasting it off to the internet), having or not having money has one the largest effects on our lives, but it also one of the things we are the most sheepish to talk about.
If you think this is going to be a post about how to manage money from a guy who ultimately has it together and is about to give you the secret sauce to fix your life, this is not that, lol. I can recommend a few YouTube channels for that though.
This is a post about money (and managing it) from a guy who has never been terrible with it but has never been particularly good with it either. It's a real work-in-progress.
I like to spend money. Some things I buy are reasonable: New equipment for work, subscriptions to apps that improve my life, and therapy. Others are understandable: Trips and vacations, purchases that enrich my hobbies. While others are borderline unjustifiable: a $150 collectable Evangelion AirPods Pro case, a $40 Pokémon keycap, and $150 dollars a week on drinks and dinners I barely remember enjoying.
My situation has changed recently. Previously, my partner was working full-time, but now she's transitioned back to a full-time student with a limited income, so I've taken on more of the financial load to help. On top of that, we are planning to go to Europe when she graduates, and that's not going to be cheap.
Oh, also, inflation is wild. Groceries are verging on robbery. Grab your pitchforks.
Before I get to the nitty-gritty, I want to acknowledge that I do pretty well. According to the poorly formatted statistics I found on some random website, I am in Canada's top 20% of earners. So please don't feel bad for me. Things are generally good, but over the next year, I really need to prioritize where that income goes.
On my trip to Japan this spring, I let the money gun go a bit. It was fun, but my purse was quite a bit lighter when I came back to reality. So I've had to get my shit together.
Where Does The Money Go?
Before I could get better at saving money, I had to stop spending it. To stop spending it, I needed to figure out what I was even spending it on.
(Note: Notion databases now run a decent percentage of my life)
I used to use Mint to track my spending, but I stopped using it about a year ago, before Intuit shut down the service. I became uncomfortable giving away that much sensitive information to a company with no great track record for data breaches.
I did what any good developer does. I built an app (or, in this case, a Notion database) that mimicked the functionality of Mint. I could create budgets for a set of categories, log monthly purchases against them, and see the total amount of spending across all my categories for this month, last month, and all time. This way I could easily see monthly money in and money out.
Technically, I could also filter down older months if I needed to, but I haven't needed to do that.
So, I've been adding my purchases every morning to this database, and I've learned a few things about myself along the way.
1. I was spending big money on little treats at coffee shops. My coffee spending was already decent, but the real catch was the pastries and lunches. They add up and will blow my budget out of the water if I'm not super intentional about when I buy them.
2. Random beach beers and pints after work might seem worth the cost in the moment, but in retrospect, they are not worth it over time. This isn't to say I am giving up drinking. I am just drinking less and drinking only fancy cocktails that feel really worth it. I'm passing on cheeky pints just because.
3. Online shopping is one of my favourite hobbies, apparently. I blame Etsy, but I love a good trinket. $30 here, $40 there... It really adds up, and I've had to cool it down. It feels bad to admit that as someone who considers themselves an environmentalist, but here we are.
4. Vinyl/Tapes/Concert Tickets/Band Merch/Being a fan is expensive. For me, this was another place where things were adding up. Two vinyl a week is (at the low end) $60, so that's $240 bucks a month... $2880 a year. Not. Cheap. Throw in a few shows, over-priced beers, and a few new black band shirts, and we are in the $300 - $400 per month range. $3600. Every. Year.
So yeah, those are my sins. Let me be judged.
Simply tracking my purchases has already helped. Having a few things to save for has also helped. Before I hit the checkout button (or buy three cream-filled croissants at once), I consider whether this purchase is worth moving a little further away from my other financial goals. Most of the time, it isn't.
Sometimes, it is. Charli XCX's BRAT will be an instant buy as soon as I find it. A cute date night keeps my partner and me connected, and an intentional slice of cake from Breka can be a great way to celebrate something special.
So here we are, a few months in. I've cancelled tons of subscriptions (probably about 80%), unsubscribed to every sales email list that's come to my inbox, and blocked Instagram from my phone (Meta finally figured me out, and I want everything they advertise to me), and I am still working through the kinks of how to do this.
I've got a few other databases, apps, and strategies on the go that help, but I think I will come back to this post at some point and update it with those. For now, tracking my purchases every day and keeping my longer-term goals in mind has been really helpful.