Why You Should Be Smart About Money In Your Early 20s

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It’s a Monday afternoon, I check my bank statement hopeful I will be able to buy lunch today at work. The screen lights up, ‘three dollars and three cents’ it shows. I sigh in disbelief because I won’t be able to buy lunch today until Friday when I get paid. Friday, that is four days away – meaning I must spend four days pretty much broke and trying to survive. I am broke and I know I am broke; but, that won’t stop me from going to work with the gas tank on E.

As I sat and thought about my broke-ness and how broke I was at that moment in time, I began to sigh in relief. Not because I was broke, but because I was not stressed for the first time in my life. My bills were paid, I had no reason to stress over being broke; however, we as humans just want money because we want to have it. In that moment in time, though, I was satisfied with the fact that I was broke because then I would have to make lunch for myself (which I have not done since middle school, if that).

I would have to make myself a home cooked meal for dinner, because I was broke. There are so many things I can now do because I am broke.

I am not going to go to a fast food place because “it’s on the way to the house.” I am not going to go waste money at the store because I was bored and needed snacks for later. A part of me was not even anxious about where I stood with my money. Inside I was screaming, I would have time to hang out at home and watch TV, instead of worrying about how fast my money is going.

At that moment in time I realized I was happy because I was broke. I did not have people asking me for money because I had extra. I did not have anyone asking to go eat lunch at a five star restaurant because we both had the money. I could reasonable say no, because I was broke.

The stigma that I should not live paycheck to paycheck and always have money available to me in case anything happens is not wrong. That is true, yes, I should always want to have money set aside for a rainy day. But, forgetting about that for a second being broke is amazing. Knowing that I don’t have to worry about it for another four days gives me time to relax before I pay another round of bills and make sure everything is intact. Happiness does not always have to be in the form of people or things, it can simply be happiness because I am are broke. My twenties are a time for experimenting and if I have enough to pay the bills, then that is all I need in life. A roof over my head and time spent with family and friends and half of that is priceless.