Have Paper, Will Burn

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Of course money can buy happiness. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar, in denial, bad at English, and/or can't argue semantics ("Money CAN buy happiness" does not mean "ONLY money can buy happiness", nor does it mean "Money CAN buy happiness even when you don't know what makes you happy", etc).

My own financial state is as follows:

I burnz that cheddar as soon as I makez it.

I've perfected this skill; as soon as I get my hands on any form of currency, I methodically and systematically (as is my wont) plan all the ways I can burn it and get it out of my hands, and then I execute these plans perfectly and efficiently in the shortest of periods. My exceedingly mainstream brain works for me at a maximum in this situation as it panders to consumerism and validation-seeking. 

Lifehacker says my "money memories" play a role in my relationship with money, because everything in our childhood plays roles in everything etc psychology etc etc. But I dunno. Growing up, I wasn't aware of whether or not we were poor/rich/middle class. I didn't know if my friends were rich or poor, but I knew that some of them had huge homes, and some of them had tiny apartments. 

When I went to university and started living on my own, I began to understand what rich/poor meant. I was rich the first week of the month when I received my allowance, and poor by the last week when I had exactly zero cash. 

As an employed adult with a steady income, I realize that coming back to live here in Jeddah has done the exact opposite of helping me rein in my spending habits. I don't pay taxes, food is cheap, I haven't caught the travel bug, I live with family, and I can afford to buy things I like (and I like cheap things to begin with). To me, that means I'm rich.

In fact, I am poor.

I have zero savings, AND I have no plans to save. Sure, I have plans of getting money, which is why I'm constantly looking for employment opportunities, but then I cancel those things out within weeks of getting my paycheck.

Fortunately, getting financially healthy is almost no different from getting physically healthy, and I have experience in the latter. Set achievable goals, keep informed, keep count, reward self, change in lifestyle, all that music-genre. I'm getting to work this year.

Here's something I read on the subject.

Got money plans? Share them.

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