I am currently 30 years old, every single time I think about my past life decisions… I was a hot mess! In today’s post I am going over 4 pieces of money and life advice for my past self in 2020.
The closest 5 people around you dictate who you become.
Jim Rohn once said that you are the average of the closest five people that you surround yourself with. I surrounded with people that I probably shouldn’t have. The result was that I became the average of all of them.
I can tell you that looking back, I had friends that I needed to cut out. Surrounding myself with certain people created me into a person that I shouldn’t have been. It’s not to say that I was a bad person, but I didn’t go toward my dreams. Becoming successful or going for my dreams was not something that I truly wanted at the time. I was interested in things like partying or not doing anything with my life. I was wasting money and getting into debt.
Take Control of Your Finances Today!
Ever feel like your finances have control of YOUR life? The Beginners Budget Guide & Workbook will help you START putting your finances in order. Get it free for a limited time!
Currently, I’m not the smartest person in the room and I choose not to be because I want to learn from other people. Certain people should not come with you on your journey. A lot of people are in your life for a reason, season, or for a small amount of time. Cherry picking the right people that need to be in your life is extremely important.
The people in your corner should people who are motivating, loving, positive, and who want you to succeed, just like they want to succeed, who want nothing but the best for you.
Money is a tool
The best money advice that I can share to my past self is that Money is a tool. When I was younger working at my first job and receiving my first paycheck, I did not have the mentality that this money was going to give me a life that I love. I thought of money as something that had to be spent on things that I wanted, or that I thought that I wanted. I don’t even know where it went at this point in my life. Money is a tool and a resource that will allow you to generate wealth.
Money gives you experiences, choices, freedom, and ultimately money gives you time. It should not be spent frivolously to keep you living paycheck to paycheck. It is literally the best tool that you can use to level up your finances and to create wealth for your family. I wish I would have thought about money this way when I was younger, I would probably be a multi-millionaire by now lol! Money allows you to gain the most important aspect of life, which is time.
You teach people how to treat you
You ultimately teach people how to treat you. When I was younger, I had different types of relationships. I dated and had friendships, but I never realized that the people who were treating me wrong were treating me that way because I allowed them to. Being engaged and having kids, I’m able to recognize that I allowed people in my life to treat me the way that they wanted. Now I can share this advice with other people, younger people, my nieces and nephews, or even my kids.
My younger self went through a lot of heartache and a lot of negative emotions. A lot of bad relationships, especially when it came to dating, was something that I experienced early in my teen years because I didn’t realize that I was allowing these people to treat me wrong because I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t put a stop to the behavior and didn’t leave when I should have left. I just kept the relationship going and I would say things like “you hurt my feelings”, “you shouldn’t have said what you said” or “you shouldn’t have done what you did”.
Knowing that you are ultimately the person who chooses how people treat you and how they respect you is really important. My first “real relationship” or “serious relationship” lasted way longer than it should have. The person continued to treat me in a certain way and would always say that they would change and that they would do things differently, but I just stayed there. I thought that if I taught them how to treat me then they would magically change.
Making Changes
You have to change the way that you react to them and the way that you have them in your life. Instead of removing myself from the equation, we would have the same problems over and over again- and I’m not talking about your normal relationship issues like not communicating correctly or not talking to the person first about a decision or even trying to see how they feel or hearing the person when they have problems.
Those are regular relationship problems that you will have in every single relationship. I’m talking about serious issues, disrespect, name calling the, mental abuse, and verbal abuse. If you stay in those types of relationships, these people know that you don’t have any self worth.
They will continue to do it because you allow it, you stay in that relationship. I thought that if I stayed in the toxic relationship, I would change them. The constant thought hat they would eventually wake up one day and say “Oh my goodness, Jennifer is like the most beautiful girl in the world. I want to change for her”. No, that’s not how it works. Am I Right? Lol
Learning that you ultimately teach people how to treat you is so important. Removing yourself from a toxic environment is the best option you can choose. It’s important remove yourself early in a relationship when you recognize red flags. Its much harder staying in a relationship for years and then having the hardest time getting out of that relationship. Yeah, that was me!
Pay yourself first
My next advice is to pay yourself first. I did not save my first paycheck AND I didn’t WANT to save it. I wanted to spend it. Saving for a rainy day and paying myself first did not have my interest. It did not even cross my mind to be quite honest with you. Using money as a tool and paying myself first would have created wealth for me in my financial journey.
If I would’ve paid myself first, I’d probably be in a better situation. Decide to pay yourself first, whether that’s through investing for retirement or just saving in a savings account, or however else that you can think of paying yourself first is extremely important. If you are currently in debt and do not know if its a good idea to start investing, check out my blog post with great information to help you decide HERE.
Afterward, you can start to pay your bills and start to buy things that you want and do other things with your money but paying yourself first should be at the top of your to do list. It’s important for emergencies, financial wellness, and financial freedom. It’s definitely something that I wish I followed when I was younger.
As I sat and thought about the money and life advice for my past self in 2020, I new I had to choose the advice that affected me the most. Hopefully you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it.
Check out the video version of this post below:
Or you can click this link to go straight to my YouTube channel.
