2013/2014 Pt4: Finances and such

I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't pay much attention to, well, anything at all, really, in 2013.  Among the many, many things I wasn't giving anywhere near enough attention to was money.

This is, sadly, not something unique to 2013.

I do, as a general rule, ignore anything with maths involved.  Accounts and finances doubly so.

As a result, it appears I've been haemorrhaging money over the past few years.

I've been living with my family since returning to Townsville (primarily because I stayed to help take care of my grandmother and I've been too lazy to change my circumstances since my grandmother died), and I've had the perfect opportunity to save up some money.  But I haven't.

I worked out the other day that I've been in a situation where I could have easily put aside $30,000 a year for the past five or six years - if I'd just bothered paying attention.

Sure, there have been a couple of overseas holidays, a new car, a couple of degrees and a few new hobbies thrown into the mix to put a drain on the bank account... but I'm still about $150,000 worse off than I need to be, and I can't adequately account for what I've spent that money on.

I expect I've largely squandered it on magazines.  Also books, comics, DVDs, coffee, novelty T-shirts, random pieces of camping equipment that I've never used (why?  God only knows), but mainly magazines.  Those things are expensive, but I find I rarely walk past a news agency without being drawn in to look at the shiny pages.

Anyway, I've decided that 150K is a lot of money to not have in my bank account and not have anything to show for it.

I've decided that 2014 shall be my year of a) paying attention to what I spend my money on, and b) spending less of it.

I've set myself a challenge of living off an allowance, rather than buying whatever I feel like on random occasions, and seeing how much I can save.  I'm hoping for over 35K.  We'll see.