Past Mel Keeps Leaving Me Great Surprises | brokeGIRLrich
I am pretty pleased with past Mel these days. I feel like I keep finding little surprises she left future me that I had totally forgotten about.
I am a pretty well trained creature. Current Mel helps out Future Mel in a ton of little non-monetary ways too.
She leaves out tomorrow’s clothes the night before – because all versions of Mel hate mornings.
Similarly, Current Mel makes Future Mel’s lunch and leaves it in the fridge the night before, if we’re working the next day.
Current Mel flips clothes right side out when throwing them in the washing machine, so Future Mel won’t have to do it when she folds the clothes.
But this past month, as things started to tighten a bit budget-wise, Current Mel was super excited by some stuff Past Mel did that made life so much more pleasant.
Past Mel saved up in advance for Contacts and Taxes. Current Mel forgot all about this until doing my net worth update the other week and I noticed those earmarked savings accounts. I had actually been starting to think about what I was going to do about contacts when I have to reorder them in a month or so, but past me was on it.
Past Mel hoarded her credit card reward points for Future Mel. There were plenty of times that I could’ve used them in the past to knock down the balances a little, but instead I’m able to use them now when things are a little tighter.
Even Past Mel’s habit of keeping the Starbucks card stocked when things are going well means that this past month, I was able to buy guilt free coffee a few times, because I didn’t actually spend any money on it right now.
On a much bigger scale, Past Mel slowly contributed to her retirement and brokerage accounts whenever she was able and Current Mel does our net worth updates and occasionally wonders how the eff it usually just keeps going up despite our sad, sad income levels right now.
Some of these are automated or semiautomated tricks like:
- Contributing to 401ks or 403bs whenever I have access to them.
- Conditioning myself to prioritize my Roth IRA each year.
Others have been creating useful habits:
- Avoiding procrastination.
- Saving up for repeat big spends as soon as they happen (ex. saving up for my contacts for 2020 ASAP after buying them in 2019).
- Setting up multiple savings accounts for larger, repeat expenses.
And sometimes it’s as simple as bulk buying, which does take a little bit of spare money to do, but if you have the ability to do it, I find it’s a pretty major perk, especially as someone with variable income.
I get to go longer between buying necessities and I usually have some fun money-type things standing by from when I did have a regular paycheck to get me through till the next time I have a regular paycheck (like the year I did the Ipsy subscription boxes that I paid for up front or the fact that I use a combination of Raise gift card and my Starbucks Gold card to max out on “free” coffees).
What could current you be doing to help future you?
This blog really appealed to me! Past me also has a savings account for taxes on 1099 work, and this year also added to that account when Unemployment didn’t take out taxes on the Federal Suppliment Tax!
I enjoyed this post but have to admit past-me doesn’t get to surprise present-me all that much. The best is finding a $20 tucked here and there around the house where it doesn’t belong, but that doesn’t sound like a very responsible way to manage my money.
To be fair, I did forget about the magic couple of dollars tucked in weird places. It’s almost jacket weather here in NJ, which is usually an exciting first day because I find $1 or $5 in my jacket pockets.