21 Totally Random Personal Finance Confessions
Recently I saw a Twitter thread on bad personal finance confessions and I must say I love it! It’s so nice when personal finance gurus admit that they’re not perfect themselves. We all do things that are not necessarily good or ‘optimal’ for our money!
Bad personal finance person confessions:
I don’t travel hack
I don’t chase credit card bonuses
What’s your confession? I won’t tell anyone (except you’ll tell Twitter…) pic.twitter.com/IJDtwkJNP5
— Chief Mom Officer (@LizOfficer) February 28, 2019
So I wrote a list of *my* bad personal finance confessions and it came up to, uh, quite a few. Some were not ‘bad’ per say, just random, so that’s what I’m calling it. Here there are – don’t judge me too much!
1. I pay RM20 per month for air-con despite almost never using aircon. That’s the condition set by the management at this SOHO I’m staying at. I’ve stayed here for about 3 years now. 36 months x RM20 = RM720 in air-con bills paid for nothing.
2. When I was younger, I thought ‘TO LET’ signs they hung at houses were actually ‘TOILET’ signs but with missing ‘I’s. For a while I wondered why many homeowners didn’t know how to spell.
3. I don’t really budget. I track my expenses instead. Related: How Expense Tracking Looks Like (As Someone Who Doesn’t Budget)
4. I will spend extra money to make the more ethical purchase… but not much more. For example, during my recent trip to Luang Prabang, I bought a mass-produced bag for RM25 instead of a hand-woven, support-local-women-and-traditional-crafts option for RM400. I wish my pocket is as deep as my conscience 🙁
5. It’s only recently that I allowed myself the ‘luxury’ of owning paperback/physical books, after deliberating to go digital for a while (for financial and environmental reasons). It feels good!
6. This might ruffle some feathers and I know that everyone have their own way to express themselves but… I wish we didn’t have to depend on fashion to show the world what type of person we are. It’s just a really wasteful industry. Related: How the Fashion Industry Makes Money (Credit: Fashion Babylon)
7. I have ruined two perfectly good fridges by accidentally poking holes in the freezer when I was chipping away the ice with sharp tools. Yes that was a stupid thing to do yes shame on me for not learning from experience yes I should have let the ice thaw first. Believe me, I felt like the biggest moron in the world the second time it happened.
8. I still don’t know if I want kids or not and a big part of that is due to how much they’ll cost (financially, emotionally and physically). I mean, if I’m going to have them, I want to be sure, you know? I don’t want to have kids ‘just in case’.
9. I’ve never set foot in a luxury store. I want to say I don’t desire anything from there (and that’s mostly true) but actually I’m just intimidated by the shop assistant, who dresses a lot better than I do.
10. Meal-prepping doesn’t really work for me because instead of having enough food to last for 1 week, I’d just eat them all in two days because I have no self-control.
11. *cries in fat*
12. Once, while getting my hair cut, the hairdresser said that people have paid a lot of money to get their hair the exact shade of mine. That was years back but the compliment still made me happy until now. This makes me feel hella vain but oh well.
13. I have lost money in investing too. Related: 3 Investments Where I Lost All of My Money
14. I think know that insurance in Malaysia is 100% overpriced.
15. I don’t play half the games I bought in Steam
16. Re: 9 Things in My Financial To-Do List (That I Keep Putting Off..) As of writing time, I’m STILL putting most of them off.
17. I’m a liiiiitle bit paranoid that Spotify will find out the people I added in my Spotify Family Plan aren’t my actual family members. Please don’t cut me off if you find out Spotify Ily. Related: 3 Ways to Get Cheaper Spotify Premium in Malaysia
18. I don’t know what derivatives mean and by this point I’m too scared to ask.
19. Something that can ruin my mood for weeks: if I bought something then find out it was sold for cheaper somewhere else.
20. Some months I’d spend more than I earn but I feel zero guilt over it. All I can say it, emergency savings is a wonderful thing.
21. I was told that I can be *too* frugal? I don’t know how I feel about it – it’s a mix of pride and also shame. Either way, for the most part I really am genuinely happy with the way I live my life, so… Related: 5 Downsides of Being Frugal
What’s your personal finance confessions?
Tell me the worse, randomest personal finance confession you have. Submit it anonymously if you want. It feels pretty good to let them off your chest 🙂
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To tell you the truth, before I got married, I hated kids. LOL.
I could manage my dislike with babies, but I really hated toddlers/bigger kids that could walk on their own. Esp those with ignorant parents that I always meet at the mall. Urgh.
Now that I have one of my own, I never knew my heart could grow so big sometimes it feels like exploding. And the ‘generosity’ just comes naturally, I would rather spend for my daughter, ie toys, clothes, etc, than for my own pleasure.
I guess some things in life you just can’t be sure of, you just have to go through it to know how it’d make you feel. 🙂
Hi A Mommy,
Good for you, glad you’re happy 🙂
Unfortunately, I’m also aware how common but taboo it is for people to regret having children. Especially women. They love their kids, yeah, but some admitted they wouldn’t have had them if they could re-do their choices. Plus it’s not like the world is running out of people or anything, you know?
Hugs to your daughter. Cubit her cheeks for me. Sounds like she’s in a loving environment 🙂
Hi Ms/Mrs Suraya! I just found out ror while searching for local financial blog with not-so-serious tone.
2. LOL i never read it same again after this.
6. Agreed! if we’re not kind of uptodate person, we can save a lot.
10. I’m in the same boat with you.
11. But nasib baik i susah gemuk haha
For point 19, it’s online or offline purchase?
My finance confession, i used to join paid-to-click ads early 2010s. I made usd0.005 per click. But now when i’m recalling back, it just wasted my time because penny wise pound foolish.
Hey Joe! Suraya will do lol. Thanks for dropping by, glad you enjoyed the post!
Lol I relate to your confession. I did some of those too. Watch ads/play games full of ads to earn very very small amount of money. Can’t remember if I even withdrew them or not!
Btw cool website you have there, keep it up!
recently, i installed ewallet (touch no go with boost app) in my mobile. but i don’t dare to use these app for paying my some bills or online payment even thought they will give discount or cashback to lucky people. So I choose to use online banking to pay bill or purchasing item via online. Maybe online banking give me “secure”.
You had a bad experience before?
I feel your pain with #7: Got conned by a fridge repair guy who slipped a pamphlet for his ‘services’ into my mailbox. Paid him RM1,800 to fix my busted fridge, only to have him vanish into thin air (never answered my calls or texts) when I realised my fridge was STILL busted after he ‘fixed’ it. Ended up spending another RM1,600 on a new fridge. Could’ve bought TWO new fridges with the money. It was a big lesson learned (and a very embarrassing one at that), and now I never consider calling a repair service without references.
1. Aircond inside your house is it or the whole building?
3. I’m so into finance, budget but then it only lasted for few days then when something happen, or I read some articles/vlogs then the spirit entered me again. They come they go 🙁
5. I love writing, I bought alot of buku latihan konon for writing then end up didn’t write anything plus I buy again another buku latihan yang makin tebal 🙁
8. I love kids, I’m married for 8 years still no kids. This 3 years I was blessed with anak buah – enough to make me happy. Hope they will take care of me too when they grow older hehe if not I save money for future nurse lah.
13. I did tradings for the past 1 month. First week ada heng, 2 weeks bye bye liao, this week balance.
14. I haven’t got one but planned to have one (not now)
15. I only play android games that was modified so I always win just to stay that positive vibes around hehe.
19. Been there but then after a while I will forget it already. When I found cheaper one, I just say maybe this time can recover what I lost before haha.
I’ve been on off blogging but I love blogging because it give me that extra training to think of something while writing. Latest try, I start another new blog – blogging in Bahasa Melayu Sarawak. I hope this time i’ll survived lah.
its klakakita.blogspot.com ; klaka means bercakap. kita is kita. hehe stay safe!
Thanks for sharing your confessions, Kenny 🙂 All the best in your dakwah work
Hi
My random confessions are (drum roll):
1. Used to buy a lot of notebooks (of all sizes), always thinking I’ve lost or used up the last one I bought. I end up with plenty of notebooks, now all in storage boxes.
2. I enjoy reading, and I like to linger and lepak in bookstores. So when Big bad wolf happened, I always visit and bought a tonne of books for the fraction of the price. Only to realise that I can easily read them in less than 5 minutes.
3. Also, I have an endless supply of files (all types and sizes except the ring-file office types). I keep losing them the moment I buy them. So keep buying more.
4. I grew up in a what others would call orang berada status, but I hardly had company to talk to. But asking for whatever I wanted was a crime. It kinda rubbed off on me that whatever situation or condition I am in, is not mine.
So, when I befriended other kids in school who lived in a smaller house than my parents had, yet has access to about anything they want, I made a conclusion that lesser is better.
Now, my cousins are doing better than me. It is actually wonderful to go on living knowing its their rezeki, not mine and me being ok with it. Just that some people in my closest blood relations are not happy with them.
Hmm… is it normal to be envious or abnormal to not give a hoot.
HAHAHAH enjoyed your confessions, thanks Hidden Feelings! Cathartic wasn’t it 😀
No 4 was interesting
When I was 10-11 years old (2005-2006), I used to play this game called Habbo (online game). I spent my money I think like RM 50 at that time to buy their coins so that you can buy their stuffs and whatnot (to show off to your online friends too haih what an idiot haha). I don’t have money at that time but my mom would topupkan my phone so I used that money to buy the coins. Sigh could’ve save that money to buy my favourite nasi lemak at my school canteen kot.
look at it this way – RM50 gave you such a valuable lesson!