In April 2010, I sat in what I described as my rented room (which was actually my brother’s old room in our childhood home) and lamented my financial circumstances.
Back then, calling me a financial disaster was like calling the Titanic a boat. She was a ship and I was sinking faster than she did. I was a financial liability. I wrote: “I have to change my spending habits, my saving habits, my thinking and my understanding of finance.”
I started the blog Justify My Buy as a way to a. review and record my spending b. hold myself accountable for my purchases; to justify the money I was about spend. And c. to educate myself and ask for help.
I’m proud to say that it worked.
After two years of living with my parents, abstaining from alcohol for six months and a hell of a lot of other sacrifices, and of course documenting my misspending, I’d paid off my debt and saved a further $20,000.
Fast forward to 2021 and I'm lucky to be locking down during COVID with my cat in my own two bedroom apartment, with enough savings to get me through an unexpected period of unemployment.
In the proceeding years, this discipline allowed me to travel overseas without debt, reclaim my independence and sanity and move out, buy a car, and pay off my credit card at the end of every month!
And carbon dioxide concentrations reached 410ppm in 2019, the highest levels on Earth in over 2 million years.
And the Earth’s surface temperature has warmed by over 1°C since 1850 (and Australia’s by 1.44°C)
And oceans around the globe have warmed by around 1 °C since 1910.
And sea levels have risen by around 25cm since 1880.
What does this mean? Put simply more extreme weather, increasing surface and ocean temperatures and rising sea levels. All of which ultimately affects the food we eat, the water we drink, and the land we live on. Basically, our ability to survive on this planet.
So, as the climate has been changing, I've been changing; changing my spending habits, my saving habits, my thinking, and my understanding of finance to limit my impact on the environment.
So, I will continue to Justify My Buy through a different, greener lens.
