Recently, I have noticed that I am becoming lazier when it comes to prepping meals for the week or making food for myself. I was looking through my expenses from the beginning of this quarter up until now and have noticed that I spent twice as much money at coffee houses and restaurants than I did on groceries! No wonder my bank statements looked so sad.
I realized this was the case because this past summer was the first time I worked a full-time job in a city where the minimum wage was much higher than at any of my other jobs before. Maybe for that reason or the fact that my bank account suddenly had a lot more money in it, I thought I had become independent and could now start getting used to luxuries like buying fancy coffee everyday.
So, for my self intervention, I decided to go a week without spending any money on food outside of groceries. I disabled Apple Pay and removed card details from my phone. I left my debit card and credit card on my desk and came to school without any cash or cards so I really had no way to pay for anything. Not going to lie, I did reach into my wallet and started walking towards Julians multiple times this week but I got used to it after three days of not having a source of money.
My weekly expenses from this past week look very different from three weeks ago. Not spending $50 on coffee and food per week changed the average expenditure significantly! I realized that this intervention allowed me to:
- Spend time cooking which is a great break from studying so now I feel more productive than ever before
- Try new recipes to make for meals which I was probably too lazy to try before
- I could now put the money I saved into my savings account, which has never looked so good!
More than any of the reasons mentioned above, I feel like I have become a little more independent for having realized what was wrong and trying to fix it and that, to me is a big achievement!
