Hello and welcome

Lovely to meet you. This is my first post and I don’t really have any idea what will become of this blog/website, but I’m here for the adventure and you’re more than welcome to join me.

I decided to start this blog to have an outlet for my thoughts and frustrations – and my hopes and dreams – around personal finance and wealth. I was never educated on this topic, at home or in school, and although I’m smart and have done well academically and professionally, I feel like I’m really lacking a foundation in personal finance education.

I’m not ‘money smart’.

I give in to impulses and end up spending more than I save. Like a lot more. I can go weeks, rarely months, when I don’t spend much, and the no-spend streak continues until I start feeling stressed, anxious or restless and then, more often than not, I give in to the first purchase trigger and buy something stupid on an impulse.

My most recent impulse buy? A hot air balloon voucher for our first wedding anniversary. We really would have been happy with just a low-key weekend away or a nice meal in a nearby restaurant. I ended up booking all three. All because I was bored and anxious on the way home from a beach trip.

I am most definitely an emotional spender and this is something I would like to work on. I wanted to have a place where I can track my progress, vent my frustrations and celebrate – hopefully – my successes. I have bought several diaries for this purpose over the years, and immediately forget about them until I find them at the back of a drawer months later. I needed something like a diary, but on my computer, so I can update it while I update my Excel budget worksheet. And, just like that, I started Woman Billionaires Club.

By the end of May, I will have:

1. returned and requested a refund on my most recent clothes hauls. Most of them were styles that don’t really suit me (as a 28-year-old I should really know better by now), were the wrong size and/or were too cheap to be good quality (again I should know better by now, a one-off good quality purchase will always trump several poor-quality buys). I bought these on my credit card so the refund will automatically go towards paying off my credit card.
2. cancelled unnecessary subscriptions. I love things like Audible and Kindle but I have tons of books I haven’t read or listened to yet so do I really need to keep stockpiling credits? No.
3. gone through bank statements and credit card statements, analysed spending patterns and updated my budget to be more realistic. I have created a budget that leaves room for the things I very clearly enjoy because I am more likely to stick to the budget when it allows me to do things I enjoy and cuts down on things I don’t care about as much. For example, I can cut down on takeaways and coffees but will not eliminate completely as I really enjoy them. I can eliminate taxis almost completely and leave room for one ride a month because my city has great public transport connections.
4. removed my payment cards from autofill services, my main online shopping sites (hello Amazon) and Apple Wallet. My theory behind this is that adding an extra step will leave enough time between the purchase trigger (cue Instagram advert) and actually making the purchase to make me think twice and NOT buy that new gadget for my kitchen that will inevitably end up being some cheap Chinese product that some 22-year-old wannabe millionaire is dropshipping from their parents’ basement.

I will come back and check on these action points at the end of May.

Speak soon,

Anna