Happy Thursday everyone! The week has flown by again. The Happy Homeowner wrote a letter to her 18 year old self and I loved the idea, so I’m going to do something similar as well. You guys will get to know way too much about me most likely from this post 🙂
My post is going to be to my 18 year old self but I’m more going to talk about what I did, and what I would’ve changed. Yes I am only 22 (almost 23!), but 18 still seems forever ago. I made a lot of life changing decisions that year also.
My 18th birthday was also the last day of high school for me. Graduation was 2 weeks later and a lot happened in those 2 weeks. I came across an adorable puppy and brought her home with me. She was a cute little thing, and she ended up growing to be around 90 pounds. I still have her (see her picture on my Twitter!). She’s a wonderful dog. Probably the best decision I have ever made. I have a deep love for dogs, and she is wonderful. I could talk about her forever if you couldn’t tell.
In the first week of June, I graduated and on that same day I moved into a rental house with the BF. Fast huh? Yeah it was! We were together for a little over a year at that point but I was still so young.
Our house was a small little thing. Rent was only $350 a month. There wasn’t actually a bedroom in the whole house and only a couple of rooms. Probably 500 square feet altogether (not including the basement). This was a good size for us, but gas and electricity still killed us. Somehow our gas and electricity bills were around 4 TIMES as much as they are in the house that we have now (and our house now is around 5X as big).
I had no clue about bills. I basically through myself into the situation and made many mistakes, but I learned a lot from all of those mistakes. Surprisingly, we never had an overdraft or missed a bill. We hardly made any money. We both worked full-time but of course the pay was very minimal.
Bills terrified me. I was way too young and had no clue what I was getting myself into.
Stop eating out so much! You two do not need to eat thousands of dollars of food every month. What a waste of money. You are plowing through money like there is no tomorrow. Eat like college students and stop going to the Mexican bar everyday and eating tacos.
I went very fast with school. I started in August of 2007 and graduated in May of 2010 with 2 degrees. I took around 21 credit hours every semester and took 12 credit hours one summer (the only time I have ever taken summer classes). Sometimes I wish I would’ve relaxed in college and enjoyed it more. Instead I was very focused on finishing fast.
I’m not saying that I regret finishing fast though. I wouldn’t be who I am today unless I would of done this. I love my job and my life. And obviously I don’t regret it because I’m doing the same with my MBA.
School Loans. Stop taking out so much! Eat less and apply the difference to your loans crazy girl! What are you thinking?
My father also passed when I was 18 (almost 19). I should’ve slowed down with school and work then. Instead I took a measly 4 days off from work because I didn’t want to think about it. So I became even more busy because I thought that if I stayed busy, then I wouldn’t have time to think about it. Boy was I wrong, I’m still having a hard time dealing with it today. In 1 month it’ll be exactly 4 years from when he passed, and I know that’ll be a hard time, especially since our family keeps growing further apart. I just have to keep thinking about all of the good memories. I love my dad a lot!
Don’t buy that car. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was 18, almost 19, and bought a car that was around $25,000. WHAT why would I do that? I was stupid. This car should hopefully last me while but that’s the last time I do that. I definitely did not need a brand new car at the age of 18 that had $400 monthly car payments.
And last but not least, don’t regret anything! Stop dwelling on the past. You’re wasting time. You can’t do anything to change that regret you have, so you might as well move on and get over it. And then learn from it! Better yourself and don’t think twice.
How far have you come? What would you change from your former self? Any regrets?
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