How My Food Habits Changed My Financial Priorities

curamax(80)

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#finance

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I’m not really sure whether this is because I’m getting older or simply becoming more mature when it comes to managing my money, but over the past few years, I’ve noticed that my preference for food has slowly changed.

It wasn’t something that happened overnight. In fact, the change was so gradual that I only recently realized how different my eating and spending habits are compared to several years ago.

Back then, food was one of the ways I relieved stress. Whenever I had a difficult day at work or simply wanted to reward myself, eating something good was usually my first option. Because of that, a surprisingly large portion of my salary would go toward food.

If I remember correctly, there was a period when around 20% to 25% of my salary was being spent on meals, snacks, restaurants, and whatever food I felt like eating.

Thinking about it now, that feels like a lot! LOL.

Nowadays, things are completely different.

I checked my expenses recently and noticed that my food spending is usually somewhere around 10% to 13% of my salary. Funny enough, whenever it reaches around 13%, I already start feeling guilty because I feel like I’ve spent too much.

Maybe that’s a sign that I’ve become more financially conscious.

Most of my meals nowadays come from hawker centres. I’ve almost completely stopped eating at fast-food restaurants, and going to proper restaurants has become quite rare as well.

Actually, the most common time I eat at restaurants nowadays is during company events... because the company is paying for it. LOL!

I guess I simply don’t feel the same excitement anymore about spending a large amount of money on myself just to enjoy a nice meal. Of course, I still enjoy good food, but I’ve become more practical about how much I’m willing to spend for it.

And surprisingly, I don’t really feel like I’m sacrificing much.

There are plenty of affordable meals that I enjoy, especially at hawker centres. As long as the food tastes good and fills me up, I’m already satisfied.

The biggest benefit I’m seeing from this change is in my savings.

Ever since I started becoming more conscious about my daily expenses, especially my meals, I’ve noticed that the amount I’m able to save every month has increased quite significantly.

If I can continue with this momentum, I estimate that sometime next year I should be able to reach the emergency fund and savings target that I’ve set for myself.

That would be a really important milestone for me.

Once I have enough money set aside for emergencies, I think I’ll also feel more comfortable allocating some of my extra savings toward investments with higher risk.

And yes... that probably means crypto. 😅

I’ve already started researching and thinking about which cryptocurrencies I want to accumulate over the long term. At the moment, Bitcoin and Hive are naturally among the first ones that come to mind.

Bitcoin, for me, has already established itself enough that I feel comfortable making it one of my long-term holdings. Hive is different because my confidence comes from personal experience.

I’ve been part of Hive for many years now. I’ve seen the platform during good markets and bad markets, and I’ve watched the ecosystem continue developing throughout those cycles.

Because of that experience, I already know what I’m getting into.

Maybe I’ll eventually diversify into other coins, but I’m also considering simply focusing on BTC and HIVE. Sometimes keeping things simple might be better than spreading money across too many investments that I barely understand.

It’s interesting how something as simple as changing my food habits eventually connects to my investment plans.

Spend less on things I no longer value as much, build my savings, secure my emergency fund, and eventually put the extra money toward assets that I believe could benefit me in the future.

Hopefully, everything goes according to plan.

For now, I’ll continue enjoying my affordable hawker meals while slowly building my savings one month at a time.