The end game of most individual is to achieve financial stability and independent by assimilating a saving habit. I have always tried my best to control my spending habits by making use of apps that ensures my consistent saving. Over time, I have managed to discipline myself to be consistent with the act of saving through apps knowing how productive this pattern of saving has been over the years. whenever I need to embark on a project that involves usage of money I create a detailed budget of every necessary item I will be needing and the cost. this is to ensure that I don't end up using the money for something insignificant.
Despite my rigorous saving and budgeting habit there is a specific item I relentlessly spend money on without budgeting or planning for it. it never seem like an issue since everyone does it. almost every activity I engage in revolves around this specific item which has made it easier for me to come up with different kind of justification about the need for to purchase this item without any consideration of its consequences on my savings.
I'm sure you must have guessed it already, This item is called "DATA" the fuel of every online activity. the truth is I'm not the type that makes use of social media platforms frequently apart from those that are necessary. for example WhatsApp, Twitter {X} and discord. Apart from activities on my hive blog that consumes a substantial amount of data there is really nothing else I use data for except one thing I don't have a specific name for it yet, which is something I'm really trying as much as possible to put under control this year.
I'm a movie lover and also a movie addict in recovery. Over the years I was able to come up with different ways to reduce the rate at which I watch movies because I realised it was affecting my productivity due to time spent watching movies. for someone like me I don't just watch movies for fun only, there are times when I feel overwhelmed and the only way to let go of my mental stress is by Watching movies.
Ever since I realised my movie watching habit was becoming too excessive, I cautioned myself and my activities on hive helped a lot in the process because I barely have spare time to watch movies these days. My movie watching habit is not over yet 😅 but compared to before I have made a lot of progress. thinking I have finally overcome this addiction I now have to face a challenge that I never knew existed. like they say, addiction has different phases.
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I'm not a fan of Netflix or YouTube. I prefer to download my movies for safe keeping, I store my movies on my laptop like a documents, labelling each folder. Being a fan of downloading movies means I have to make use of data to download movies but since I no longer have time to watch movies that should automatically mean I will spend less data downloading movies but that wasn't the case. My movie watching habit is less potent but my movie downloading habit is still very active.
It is quite funny how I download movies excessively with no plans to watch them anytime soon, is that not weird? There are a lot of movies on my laptop and backup hard drive right now I might not be able to watch before the end of 2024. I'm this kind of person that enjoys watching series a lot and the moment someone recommends a movie or I come across it online, I instantly go for it by checking the ratings and downloading it. I guess I have it at the back of my mind that someday I will watch it. Due to this excessive attitude of data usage I spend more than what is needed to purchase data every day/week/month.
The question is, can I really do with purchasing data?
The answer is No because I have a lot activities I use it for but I will really love to control how I make use of it, to avoid unnecessary spending this year. though I still don't know how I'm going to control my excessive usage of data but I feel if I can try as much as possible to reduce the amount of data I use in downloading movies that should reduce the rate at which I make use of data. hopefully this will be achievable for me this year but I'm not having any expectations 😂.
This write-up was inspired by weekly prompt in hive Naija community.
