It's been over a year since my last blog post here at Frugal Paul, as I explored other interests. However, as of late, I keep seeing stories come up in the media that I find demonstrate an incredible sense of entitlement and a complete lack of understanding the importance of keeping financial business in order. I am reminded of a much younger me.
I wasn't always frugal, and there was a time when I was terrible at managing my money. I didn't have much direction in life; I was working as a construction labourer here and there through the week, and worked as an overnight security guard at a local factory on the weekends. The factory wasn't in production during this time, but because there were huge boilers, they employed boiler room engineers to be in the boiler room around the clock. Usually after 3:00am, Gerry the boiler room engineer had completed his checks and everything was quiet in that sleepy town, so we'd pass the night having conversations about life. Gerry was around my father's age, but I could talk to him as a friend. I was becoming frustrated with always being broke and never seemed to make enough money. I brought this up to Gerry, about how unfair life was and explaining to him what I thought the problems were, when he told me I was living beyond my means.
At first, I was infuriated! I lived in the cheapest rent slum one-room apartment, I didn't own a car, I certainly wasn't buying nor eating the best foods, and it had been nearly two years since I had bought any new clothes. I was using an old Amiga 500 that didn't even have a hard drive and used a 2400 baud modem. I watched TV on a small black and white set. Then Gerry pointed out that I smoked, and that smoking was a rich person's habit that I couldn't afford. I couldn't believe what I was hearing; I should give up the one thing that brought me pleasure in life?
Finally, Gerry put it to me like this: Living beyond my means meant that I was spending more than I was earning. One way I could help this situation was to give up smoking. Another thing I could do was to increase my income. If I believed I had done everything possible to reduce my expenses, then I had to look for ways to increase my income.
I was already working 7 days a week, and when I wasn't working I was looking for work. I was good with computers, but I couldn't seem to get a good job. That's when Gerry told me that I need to prove to potential employers that I knew what I claimed. Gerry related to me his own story of being poor, finding a way with being frugal to become educated as a boiler room engineer and how he'd study while working at a low paying menial job, and how he succeeded in becoming who he wanted to be. Up until then, I had no idea that people lied on their resumes. It wasn't enough that I could tell an employer I could write computer programs, I had to have a diploma or certification of sorts from an accredited institution to back up my words to get a job as a computer programmer. Up until then, I thought of school as a place people went to learn new things, but using school to demonstrate skill and knowledge was a new concept.
That marked a big turning point in my life. That's when I realized I had to invest in myself and live a frugal lifestyle in order to live better and happier. I calculated the cost of going to college for 3 years and estimated the amount of student loan money I would need, then I compared what I was then earning to what the lowest paid computer programmer would be paid. It was a significant difference; I would easily double my annual earnings. If I continued with a frugal lifestyle, I would have the student loan paid off in just over a year. It was both amazing and empowering, and it really did work out.
I'm going to reboot this blog because it's clear to me that there are too many people who are just like I was, and I want to help them just as Gerry helped me all those years ago.
