Where'd My Money Go???

By: Zachary Pienkowski

Have you ever wondered exactly where your money goes? As a working college student I have quickly found that out that money comes hard and goes easy. On an average day the morning starts with a cup of coffee and maybe a bagel. There goes $4.00. After class I am starving so I head out to get lunch and grab a sandwich and a drink. There goes $8.00. Then after my evening close it is close to dinner time and I decide I deserve to go out to eat at a sit down restaurant. There goes $20.00. After simply eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner I have spent a total of $32.00 and have absolutely nothing to show for it. Now this does not happen every day to every student, myself included, but I am sure that it does happens often. If someone kept up this pace for even a week they would have food expenses alone of over $200! Depending on what kind of job you have that might be pretty darn close to a weeks paycheck. Some expenses can not be avoided like rent, mortgage, utilities, gas etc. However, if you started with $100 in your pocket and counted how much you had at the end of the day, you would be surprised how quickly it goes and sometimes left to wonder where you actually spent it. It is also not realistic to completely cut off any extra expenses because most people do not have the will power to do that cold turkey. Instead a better solution is to set up a budget for food or other expenses. For example, set aside $25 a week that is allowed to be spent on food other than groceries. Whether it be coffee, drinks, lunch, snacks, or dinner. That way once the amount of budgeted money is spent, there is no more to use for that purpose. This is one way that I was able to get myself out of credit card debt and able to save a lot of money along the way.

Sources:

http://life.familyeducation.com/money-management/personal-finance/47211.html?detoured=1
http://life.familyeducation.com/saving/spending/59348.html?detoured=1
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/byauthor/237210