My response to Hivenaija weekly prompt #23
We have all made poor financial/spending decisions at some point in our lives. Have you ever bought or spent on something and the moment you paid, you instantly regretted it? What was it? And how was the experience like?
While I was growing up, I had a lot of poor financial expenses and bad spending habits. I buy a lot of things I thought I needed, but after buying them, I end up wasting them or trashing them, and I then start regretting why I bought them.
When I find something really good, I usually stop and purchase it without even trying it on. If it's a dress or pair of trousers, I simply look at it and figure it should fit, so when I come home, I'm happy to have a new outfit. As I start looking at them, I discover that I don't like some of them. I'll start to wonder if I made the right decision when choosing that outfit, and the rest may not fit me well since they're either too tiny or don't look well on me.
When I was a student, I would go shopping for new clothes every semester when classes resumed. Since I love to wear a shirt and jeans, I made every effort to buy enough jeans for the entire semester, which translated into about ten pairs of jeans and fifteen (15) shirts. I unloaded my bags at the hostel, showed my roommate my new outfits, and tried them on so she could see how they fit. I found it difficult to fit the pants, and only two (2) of the ten (10) that I was able to get on, and some of the shirts didn't fit well.
Before you question why I don't try them on before leaving the store where I bought them, let me explain. Trying things on there is a lot of effort for me and is often stressful; I get headaches and decide not to buy anything, so I just look at the clothing and assume the size will fit. I ended up donating those that didn't fit, so you can only imagine how much money I wasted doing that.
Another thing I regret spending money on is facial treatment. All I want is to get rid of the acne on my face, and it has led me to use many products at the end of the day that don’t work. A lot of people recommend some product, and silly me, I will buy it and try it out, and the acne is still on my face, but I kept buying and wasting my money.
I ran out of money at one point and was unable to afford anything for myself. I sat down and calculated the amount I had spent on clothes and facials when I realized how wasteful and irresponsible I was with my money. As a result, I stopped buying things I didn't need; I don't move money around; and I do not leave any money I didn't need in the account.
Thanks for reading
