My Story Part 1

Ever since I was a little kid, I was obsessed with money. Both my parents lavishly spent on me, and I seemed to have a pretty good allowance. My mom would give me $5 every day for lunch, and sometimes she'd give me a little bit extra if I was going to stay at childcare after. Most of the time I only spent like 3 or 4 dollars and save the extra dollar. I liked to save money at an early age, but I also liked to spend money.

By the time I was 12 or so, I had the ability to save a hundred dollars or so every month. Except, I wasn't really saving it because any time I had the opportunity to blow the money on a video game or spend the money at an arcade, I would do it as soon as I got the chance. And, since video games cost $40 or $50 new, most of my money was gone immediately.

These days I rummage through my garage and think of how much money I actually wasted on those things, and how I wish I spent that time doing something a little bit more constructive with my time. But really, I'm glad I got it out of my system then so I wouldn't become a 23 year old video game playing junkie like so many of us.

This trend continued until I was seventeen or so, except that I had branched off into buying books, cds, as well as video games. This wouldn't have been so bad, except that I was getting these things at the worst prices available. I'd pay full retail for all these items, instead of trying to look up better deals online. At an early age, I had learned to be a bad consumer. I could've gotten all of these items at much cheaper rates, if only I had spent a little more time researching.

I'm not blaming my past self for doing any of these things, I mean really, I was just a kid. I just want to point out the fact that no matter where you are in life, you have the ability to save money. If you're 34 or 57 or even 12, there are always opportunities out there to spend less than you have to on things that you enjoy.

In my next installment I'm going to talk about my formative years, and the copious amount of vices that I developed during this time. Not only did these things break my bank account, they seemed to have a negative impact on my emotional health as well.