Budgeting is something I used to be good at, but when faced with more responsibility and a lot of things being too important, it became very hard to prioritize and budget. I have found myself a lot of the time in serious debts, so much that my salary is finished before it even gets to my account, and when I look back at what it was used for, 90% of the things aren’t even problems directly related to me but those around me. This is why I would always say the first rule of budgeting is to have other means of income else you would always find yourself on the backfoot.
Photo by Microsoft 365 on Unsplash
It was recently (two months back) I began to really enjoy my salary after a long time of struggling with debts, but this came after prioritizing myself first. I am not going to lie. I have offended a lot of people in the process of budgeting, but at the same time I have learned that peace comes from choosing your battles instead of fighting just any battle. This is not because you are not sure of winning them all, but because you need to be sure of saving your strength to fight your own battles. For example, if you are going to help a family member with their school fees because they are in dare need, ensure that you at least have an understanding with your landlord else you would be saving someone's future only to realize you have no one to help you in your hour of need, so why be in need?
My parents want me to come home for the holidays, this is in a time when I am recovering financially and putting a strain on my finances would be me shooting myself in the foot in January. Why risk going only to end up praying for a miracle to survive the new year. This is what budgeting truly is, It is not about how much is spent, but about the repercussions of spending. It’s not about living within your means, it’s about living below it so that in the future you can be able to conveniently make the big decisions you wish to be making now. Else you will always find yourself on the backfoot budgeting every dime and having nothing to fall back on.
THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO SCIFI CONTEST PROMPT FOR WEEK 46 EDITION 2
