I don't mind spending on things that I want if I only have enough money with me. Oftentimes, I think that I deserve those after days of hard work and I wanted to reward myself for it. Sometimes, there are just things that I was tempted to buy but I don't really need them. Especially when I'm browsing my online shopping application or I'm walking around downtown when something catches my eye.
I'm an impulsive buyer, actually and this is the thing about myself that I hate. Back then when I was still working full time, I didn't mind spending because I knew that I would be receiving my salary every 15th and 30th of the month. Add my earnings from blogging back then, I was just giving my money away in an instant because I can earn it back in a few posts. But when I became a student again and I don't have a stable income anymore, I realized the importance of saving money since I only rely on my side hustles for now.
If ever there are things I'm spending on that I should cut off or eliminate, firstly, that will be my coffee intake.
Image by Jakub Dziubak from Unsplash.
Well, it hurts because it's my life, my source of energy, and one of my happiness. Lately, I think my caffeine intake has been too much. I can drink a cup every hour in the day if I have time to make my coffee. If I'm outside, I get tempted and allured by the scents of brewed coffee in coffee shops that I pass by in the streets while I walk. It was more expensive than the Native Coffee or the Instant Coffee I'm buying, that was like 8 or 10 times the price in one cup. Add the snacks paired up with that cup, I enjoyed and got the best experience but it cut off a lot in my budget.
Too bad, but I have to cut off some of my coffee shop hunting for now. I'll get back to this habit when I can find a good source of income after all of the expenditures in my studies and training.
Next thing to spend seldomly is Online Shopping. I often resort to this when I can't find the item in physical stores but sometimes I check out things that's on sale or when I have lots of Free Shipping vouchers. I mostly fall for that, haha!
Image by CardMarpr.nl from Unsplash.
For now, I have 35 items left on my cart on Shoppee, and 27 items on Lazada. Sometimes, when I can scroll on my Facebook feed, I can also find some stores there with good items. Just like the last time, I almost fell for that cute cat designed Tote Bag for Php 195. Good thing, the shipping fee made me back out. It charges me to pay Php 120, and it's too expensive for me since it almost got the same price as the item. Lol. I better buy that in a physical store here, at least the transportation fare would be 10 times lower.
Another thing was my subscriptions and mobile data, they're taking a big portion in my budget, too. Last time, I subscribed to Spotify for Php 149 a month, and WeTV for 349 quarterly, and sometimes in IQIYI for Php 79 a month. Plus Canva, wherein I'm paying Php 299 a month. Luckily, I got friends who agreed to be on my team in Canva and we divide the subscription price every month. It's a lot of help honestly.
However, I got too busy recently and I don't have time to watch or listen to music that often. I'm not even using Canva recently. I was just choosing a good image on my uploaded photos, then setting it as the Cover Image of my posts. If I have to fix the lightings of my photos, I'm doing it manually on my phone's editor. It's taking a lot of time but I'm not posting daily, so it's not a big deal. We plan to terminate the subscription next month for we were not using it regularly and we were not using it oftentimes worth of what we were paying. I also terminated all of my other subscriptions since I'm just wasting my money on things that I rarely use.