The road to financial literacy has not been an easy one. As I mentioned in my post about investing, I grew up living paycheck to paycheck. Moreover, I still have family members abroad who still cannot afford the basic necessities. However, I am determined to change my circumstances.

These are some of the mistakes I made along the way.

1. Leaving my credit card on file.

As Ariana Grande stated:

It makes sense

While I'm not 100% addicted to shopping (not enough money ?), I can admit that it feels good to acquire something new from time to time.

For ease, I typically have a saved form of payment on file. This is mainly for convenience if I'm a repeat customer (curse you, Amazon). Some sites also require that you have a payment method on file.

While it makes perfect sense to keep your card on your profile to prevent rifling through your things and getting the card every single time you need to make a purchase, it can also get costly. Pretty sure that corporations know this as well.

Impulses are a funny thing.

If it's an impulse buy, it's so much easier to go through with the purchase with a card on file than if you have to physically go get it. It's a very minuscule thing - and of course, if you really have the urge to impulse buy, getting up to get your card won't really stop you. However, for me - I have gone 1-2, click, done - and the item is now ordered.

If I have to get up and ask myself: "ok where did I put my phone?" (My phone case serves as a wallet too.) It's one extra layer that I have to do. Believe it or not - it has actually prevented me from purchasing things I was on the fence about.

While convenient, having your card on file doesn't help with curbing impulse buys if the information is literally already saved.

2. Subscriptions

This one is two-fold. Both laziness and overestimating how much I'd use a subscription caused me to overpay for the service when I didn't need to have that added expense.

Whether that's an entertainment subscription or otherwise - my new rule of thumb is "if you don't use it regularly, then do not waste your money on it."

3. Staying a contractor for far too long

Listen, I was a contractor for a long time. I was very grateful to have had a job throughout my schooling. It is something I look back on and was grateful for the opportunity.

However, if I could do it all over again - I'd change just one thing: my contractor status. For so long, I had no health benefits, no retirement accounts, no paid time off, etc.

Having a job at all allowed me to pursue some of the things I wanted to do - but it was simply a launching point. This time taught me a lot of very valuable things about contractors and how much money you really get as a contractor. There was a cap, indeed.

4. Sale items

Black Friday is both my best friend and my nemesis.

What Went Wrong

When I see a sale, I'm more likely to goad myself into thinking "I'll use that at some point -- so I may get it now while it's on sale!"

Look, I've learned that unless you're going to use it relatively soon, don't bother buying it. The reality is that if you need something, you should look for a sale or a good deal to see if you can save some money. However, if you don't really need it, don't buy it just because it's on sale.

This is something I'm still trying to curb as it's so hard to resist a "MEGA BLOW-OUT SALE!" My ex used to always say "Honey! Look, it's a hot deal!" I'm sorry, B - but I don't need 3 blocks of cheese for the price of 2. (Disclaimer: I'm just giving an outlandish example - I don't think he ever tried to get me to buy 3 wheels of cheese.)

The lesson

Now, I think of it this way - if I buy something on sale that I don't need - I'm not actually saving money. I'm still losing money on the purchase since I wasn't going to buy it at all if it wasn't for the sale.

5. Couponing

I have gone out of my way to hunt for coupons in the past. I spent a good amount of time trying this method to better my finances (starting in high school).

Everyone is doing it!

One of the first pieces of exposure I had to this practice was one of my best friends in high school. She was so organized with her coupons and made everything look so aesthetically pleasing on top of it. It inspired me to coupon hunt too.

I also saw how there are people who would pull out a million coupons at the store when I was their cashier - and it took their totals down substantially. I remember even having to signal the SOS light for one of the supervisors to come over and put in a code in the system to override the system being like "hey man you sure you wanna sell the groceries to this person for this little money?" I thought it was the coolest.

Third, I saw a LOT of financial gurus on the internet swear by couponing. They shared tips on how to coupon, where to find the best deals, and even apps you can download to get money back after you go to the grocery store.

...so I should do it too.

I downloaded the recommended apps for couponing and spent a part of my free time on weekends looking at ads to clip for coupons to add to my mini file folder. (You know - those plastic things with the sleeves.) I'd organize it by store and by "insane deals."

However, it just doesn't work for me.

What went wrong

For one, I'm an incredibly lazy person when it comes to things that I'm not thoroughly enjoying. While it was other people's cup of tea, it just wasn't mine. It didn't feel rewarding while I was doing it.

I spent entirely too much time trying to find deals that I could actually use - and more time organizing them into my accordion file. Then, when I would go shopping, the coupons swayed me to purchase things I normally wouldn't buy.

Consequences

This resulted in leftover food/items that I swore in my heart of hearts I'd make myself eat/use when I saw the coupon & purchased the thing. That contributed to waste when I inevitably couldn't consume the item. In turn, I felt worse about myself for being wasteful and for failing to deliver on my own personal goals, especially when others could - and I've seen it work so well for them!

With age, time, and further experiences, I realized that just because something worked for someone else - that doesn't mean it works for you.

Even the apps didn't work for me because they required that extra step of 1) looking at the app for coupons. 2) buying the thing based on the coupon. 3) you now have to scan the receipt into the phone.

Such a small add-on to what you'd do already - but essentially, as the items are typically things I wouldn't buy, it ended up being another stretch. Plus, habit stacking is hard when the routine isn't built already.

(Shameless self-promotion: I wrote another post on habit stacking here.)

6. Not setting up autopay across the board.

Contrary to lesson #1, setting up your payment method for bills can be helpful.

Why

I wish I didn't have to admit this one since I work so hard to pay all of my bills on time and am trying to establish better credit. (Have been for years btw) However, as I got older, I found that my days got longer - but went faster. How in the world does that work? I started to forget a bill here and there.

So during my drives to and from class (since I worked full time), I would call the institutions and explain the situation and hope they have mercy on my soul since I've been a good paying customer. Fortunately, most of the time when this happened, the companies were helpful in waiving the penalty fee. I've been very fortunate to only forget once per company - and not twice. Again, how does that work lol?

My parents advised me to track my bill payments how they did and let me paint you a picture.

My Previous Influences

Imagine a big poster board - just a plain one. My dad actually used cardboard from leftover boxes and reused those. He would sit down each year around December-January, and create grid lines. Then, once he was content with the grid lines, he added the companies across the top of the board & listed out the months on the most-left column. Once he was done, he got up to find a garbage bag (we used clear and white ones growing up since they were the budget ones). He took the garbage bag and placed one or two layers (still using 1 bag because we're not wasteful like that ok) over the cardboard grid he just made. Then he would tape the back of it and stick that beautiful thing to our fridge. Each month, when we paid bills (via check so my mom can utilize the ledger) - he would go to the DIY board and write down the check number, amount, and date paid.

Looking back on this, I'm incredibly humbled by how I grew up and how adorable my parents are.

Today

However, again - remember how I said I was lazy? I do things electronically and with calculations so that I can see things updated that way. However, because I had a mistrust of how companies may overcharge me via direct pulls, I was incredibly hesitant to set up bill pay.

Now, it's one of the biggest things I utilize. When I start a new service with a company, that's one of the first things I ask: what are your options for autopay? How do I set it up? If I do it now, do I get a credit or any fees waived? Important questions to ask, trust me.

Plus, now that I'm (feeling) old, I can almost guarantee that something's gonna slip when you're working long days and can't muster up the brain cells to function normally. (Me a lot, especially lately - so no judgment whatsoever.)

7. Not being realistic with my goals

I am definitely someone who encourages others (and oftentimes myself) to shoot for the moon. While that's generally a good thing in my book, it sometimes leaves me with a little bit of disappointment when I use that same mindset for goal setting.

What went wrong

Oftentimes, when I goal-set, I think of my overall goals (typically in the long-term) and not the habits and behaviors that I have to actively take to reach them. Without that key component, I have been one to chew off more than I can handle in the past.

While yes, I *should* be investing x amount if my company is matching up to y percent, life doesn't always work like that. Sometimes, it's okay if all we can invest or save is less than what we intended. This just simply means that we have to go back and goal-set. This one is multifaceted as it also bleeds into other areas of my life. I'm often very optimistic about what I want - and how I goal set. However, I have a tendency to also be very harsh on myself.

What I'm working on

I need to just have more patience with myself, with life, and with the overall journey. Success doesn't happen overnight. There's a lot more to it. When these negative feelings come up simply because I didn't meet a goal, it's very detrimental to my overall well-being and vision. Rather than be hypercritical and harsh about what I did wrong, I need to exhibit more grace towards myself because financial literacy is a hard path to follow. It requires a lot of mental fortitude amongst other things (such as good luck to have a well-paying job, the self-control to not spend, continuous checking of expenditures, analytical skills to reconcile spending habits versus what your budget allows, etc.) Rather than being so hard on myself, I am working to recognize how far I've come and focus on the growth that I've exhibited and all the growth yet to come.

Fin.

It's both humbling and empowering to write this post. I never would've been able to recognize that some of these things I was doing were mistakes. For example, not having autopay because of how I was brought up, what I was taught, etc. It's great to know where I came from and understand that I can tweak little things to make my life a little bit easier.

If you read nothing else, here is the summary of what I learned.