#20: Loud Budgeting and Other Things I Do for Financial Wellness

How I've unknowingly loud-budgeted my whole life, my honest financial wellness habits, and untangling our emotions around spending.

ICYMI, you must watch this iconic commercial poking fun at themselves, you must.

Before jumping into sharing what I’m about to in this issue, I want to be direct in acknowledging that any financial advice is far from a universal one-size-fits-all, especially in this economy and the increasing disparity in the extremes that different socioeconomic groups face in financial security (i.e. Victoria Beckham’s idea of “working class,” versus the actual working class).

What I’m sharing here is information that I’ve learned along the way through my emotional relationship with money, self-education, knowledge passed from friends and financial experts savvier than I, and perspective that has been informed from my personal position in life.

Speaking of which, here’s a little financial background on me:

I am a daughter of two immigrants, who came to America with absolutely nothing (my father was an entrepreneur, who found great success at one point, before tables turned and then filed for bankruptcy— and my mother worked on-and-off as a realtor and other odd jobs, but mostly was a stay at home parent), but then worked incredibly hard to build enough financial security to pay for my sister and my higher educations, debt-free. I had very little financial education at home, other than an unshakeable understanding that money was crucial and equal to freedom. There was no education or direct conversation around things like investing, saving, credit cards, credit scores, or retirement planning.