In around June 2017, I had an epiphany of sorts. I was, and still am, in a job that pays reasonably but not brilliantly (about half way between minimum wage and the national average), and renting a flat with my partner at a reasonable monthly rate. I didn't consider myself to be living a lavish lifestyle by any means: I'd have a take-away or eat out every couple of weeks, go on the odd city break but always try to find cheap lodgings, and would rarely if ever buy expensive technology, at least not until it had come down in price...
And yet, I found that I was almost always running out of money at the end of the month, and often found myself dipping into the little money I had in an ISA whose interest rate had dropped to 0.01% because I was too lazy to transfer it to a new one. I would often only find out that I needed to dip into the savings I had in my ISA when I would attempt to pay for something and find that the payment wouldn't go through. I was not in the habit of checking my bank statements for odd things coming out of my account, or to see how much I had to see me through until payday. And if I had, say, £20 on the day before payday, I would see that as a bonus that I could spend on something as a treat, rather than putting it away somewhere to use when I actually needed it for something.
Why would I do this? It's hard to say, because I've always thought of myself as being sensible as far as money goes. Amongst other things, I've paid into a pension for about ten years, I made sure that the flat I moved into was energy efficient so that we wouldn't have to keep turning the heating on all the time, and apart from a student loan I may never be able to pay off, I have no debts. But I suspect that part of the reason for me becoming not very good with money was that I complacently thought that this was enough, that I could afford to be absent-minded and relaxed about my situation and sort it out later on in life.
It probably isn't enough, though. I am not a materialistic person but money is useful to have if things go wrong or something unexpected happens, and you can't necessarily expect someone else to pay for it. I would also like to at some point own a place to call my own, and don't want to pay the money I get from my pension in later life to a landlord if I can help it. The realisation came about not from any one event but from a slow, creeping feeling that I had to do something about my finances, and to take more control of what I was doing.
Now I've decided to start this blog about my experiences. I'm doing it to help myself stay motivated and to help others who are trying to do the same thing, and I hope to write about all of the different ways I've managed to stop spending money and to save it instead.
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