January and Broke!

The dust has settled, the excitement of Christmas is over and despite all the December planning and budgeting for the longest month in the history of longest months; January has arrived and here you are pockets pulled out, broke and mourning the seemingly longest wait ever for payday!

January has traditionally been the month of very dry pastures for me for obvious reasons. We go crazy in December spending what we don’t have on things we can’t afford or really want. 

The spending becomes so addictive -because some stores slashed their prices by 60% – that you forget to put some money aside for a ‘rainy day’.

I suck at managing money; I know, I know, there are thousands of free resources that can assist with that. But I’m also lazy.

Lazy to research, lazy to read, lazy to plan. We all know the things we need to do to get what we want but we never do it, right?!

Anywho, January always caught me with my pants down -as if I didn’t go through the exact same thing year after year; you’d think I’d learn my lesson- and having to ‘scrunt’ until payday.

In recent years though, with my bad-ass winning at adulting self, I decided to make a few adjustments -because it was always trial and error for me- so that I didn’t have to deal with the bane of being broke.

Here’s how I kinda survive!

Pay bills in advance

During December, we get paid our salaries and any other pittances in the first two weeks, yay! No not so ‘yay’, this also means that next payday is like 100 weeks away. To avoid defaulting on  bills, I pay those shit in advance.

So instead of stressing out about starving to death and my electricity and water getting cut, I only stress about starving to death. 

Stopped buying Christmas gifts

My family is small and my friends circle is even smaller. Most of my Christmas gift shopping was out of guilt anyway or just as a formality (depressing I know). I stopped that shit completely and swapped it with time (yeah corny I know).

Time with loved ones, gathering together under one roof. Eating, drinking, nostalgia and being merry. Besides shopping for people that already had everything, became a bit redundant.

Skip eating out 

This is a no brainer, but all those groceries I stocked up on in December were for this very reason. Skip the restaurants and the fast food joints and save yourself some cash. Besides, 99% of the time whether or not the food is good is a toss up anyway.  Come on, you know this.

Meal planning

So meal planning is becoming a thing in my home. It saves a lot of time and money because you write your list based on what you will be eating for that week or month then you shop accordingly, at least that’s how I do it.

You avoid “oh look they have lollipops, I want that” aka compulsive buying. Unless you planned on cooking lollipop soup that’s not on your damn list! You also avoid a lot of food wastage. I’ve had to dump tons of spoiled food because I shopped randomly for things that I ‘might’ cook.

Stop spending STAT.

You’d think after coming off that binge spending kick for the holidays you’d be done with it. Seriously, stop spending!

Entertain yourself at home

Hey, you know that 50″ plasma you decided to ‘treat yo self’ with for Christmas? Use it! Justice League wasn’t that great anyway. Besides, you wasted money on some fancy shmancy  internet gadget (that you’ll hardly ever use) that gives you free movies even before they’re produced.

If you want the feel of the movie theater pop some popcorn and invite your friends, tell them to bring their own shit…haha

Stop treating yo self

Seriously! I mean come on, this treat yo self campaign has given everyone an excuse to splurge on shit they don’t want, do shit they cant afford all in the name of treating ‘yo self’.

The dynamic of the debate of  ‘do I really need this or do I just want it’ has changed to ‘fuck it ‘ treat yo self’. Of course with the bullshit we go through in life, it does warrant a ‘treat yo self’ now and then. But treating yo self every damn day is a one way ticket to Brokeville (unless that’s what you’re into).

What about you? What are some of the ways you save and manage money…? Let me know in the comments will ya!

 

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