 Hey guys, welcome back to my channel or welcome if you're new. If you don't already know me, my name is Sam and I just recently moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina and in documenting my journey of living here and living by myself, having an apartment without a roommate or anything, I have gotten quite a few questions asking how do I afford it, how do I manage my money, how do I budget, et cetera. So I thought that I would just share some of my tips. I am by no means a financial advisor or any kind of expert when it comes to this stuff at all. A lot of the tips I'm gonna be sharing I feel are like kind of common sense. The first tip is so basic and should go without saying don't spend money that you don't have and be really careful with credit cards. Now of course I understand that sometimes emergencies come up and there is something that you have to pay for and you don't have the money to pay for it upfront so you have to charge it to your credit card. Obviously that's a different story but I'm talking about people who will just rack up their credit card debt. They're just blissfully unaware of their spending. I do love using credit cards. It's a great way to build your credit and depending on the card that you have, you can get rewards, travel points, cash back, et cetera. So I do love using them but I'm always very careful when I'm using my credit cards. To go kind of hand in hand with that, don't live above your means. Again, this is so simple. I feel stupid even having to say this. I see a lot of people doing this. So many people want like the newest flashiest phone, the nicest flashiest car, the nicest biggest apartment. Just because you can technically afford something doesn't mean that you have to have it. So for example, when I moved down here to North Carolina and I was looking at apartments, technically yeah, I could afford to live in a really nice luxury apartment but instead I looked for something that was at the lower end of my price range. Now obviously, I mean, you don't have to live in a dump. If you can afford something a little bit nicer, then go for it. But to me, it just isn't worth it. It doesn't make sense to get a really expensive, super fancy apartment when I could live a little bit more modestly and then have extra money saved over every month so that way I can save, I can make my student loan payments, I can just live comfortably and not have to be stressed and super tight with money every month. Same thing with my car. I'm not gonna lie, I see people on social media with their fancy Mercedes-Benz's and I'm like, that would be really nice. But do I really need that car? No. And I think a lot of people too when they get these really fancy expensive cars, they're not thinking about how much more expensive their gas is gonna be because now you have to put premium gas in that thing and it racks up. The next thing that I suggest, and this is what I started doing when I started living on my own is to list out all of your monthly expenses and put them in order from most important to least important. So for example, most important would be your rent, right? Your car payment, your car insurance, your health insurance if you have to pay for that. And then least important would be maybe your Netflix account, your gym membership, things that you technically don't need you could do without. And this should include everything that is a normal regular monthly expense to you. Add it all up and then subtract that from how much you make every single month. And that number right there is what you have for saving and for just fun spending. Things that you don't necessarily do every single month like going on vacation or maybe going shopping. If that number is smaller than what you would like it to be, now go back through and look at your monthly expenses and see what things could you do without. What things could you get rid of? Not necessarily forever, but at least for right now so that you can start saving a little bit more every single month. So for example, I used to go and get my eyelash extensions done every single month and I loved having them. They made me feel really good but I felt like it was an expense that I could do without. So I stopped doing that. I had cable TV for a little while and realized, oh, I almost never watch cable. So why am I paying for this when I could pay like half of the price and just have internet and I can stream whatever I wanna watch. And think about things that you spend money on that you could start doing yourself for a little while. Like do you go and get your nails done all the time? Maybe start doing your nails from home for a little while. I'm not saying that you have to cut out everything in life that brings you joy. Obviously, if it's a comfort for you to go and get like a facial every once in a while or something like that, then still do those things. Like still live and enjoy your life but just be a little bit more conscious of your spending. I was in a habit for a really long time going and getting so many different beauty services done every single month. I would get my nails, I would get my lashes, I would get facials, I would get waxes. And it got to a point that it was just such a normal part of my routine that it wasn't even bringing me joy anymore. Like it didn't even feel like a special treat because it was just something that I was doing so frequently. So I started to cut back and now if I just feel like I need a pamper day, I wanna treat myself to something, I will go and do that. And it feels more special now that I don't do it all the time. Another tip, and this one is huge, this really changed my life, especially when I was first saving to move out of my parents' house, have at least three to four different accounts. The first account should be where your money is coming out of for your necessary expenses, your necessary bills, your reoccurring monthly expenses, your rent, your car payment, your groceries, et cetera. Things that you need in order to survive. Like they are non-negotiables. Then have a second account for savings. So either every week or every month, decide on a minimum amount that you were going to deposit into that savings account and do it every single time. Consider that like a mandatory expense. Think of it like a bill that you have to pay. You have to put this minimum amount in your account every single time, even if it's literally just $5 a month, but something, set a minimum amount for yourself. And then if you have extra leftover at the end of the month, put a little extra in that savings account if you can. Then have your third account be your fund money. What I like to call my fund money. So this would be things that are not necessary, but you're just doing them because it brings you joy. So like going out to dinner, going to get your nails done. And then the fourth account would be if you have any kind of debt that you need to pay off, whether you have credit card bill debt or student loan payments. But I think that having that separate from your regular savings is really important because you don't want all of your savings and all of your extra money necessarily to just go to paying off that debt. I mean, yes, that's important. That should be your number one priority. But you also want to make sure that you have a little bit set aside for a rainy day. And again, I'm not an expert. I don't know what an expert would recommend, but that is just what I have been doing and what's been working for me. And it just made it so much easier and clearer for me to really like get a grasp of how much money do I actually have? How much is coming in and where is it all going? And it just keeps me organized. And then my last tip is to use mobile banking. I have apps for my bank account for all of my different credit cards and it has made it so much easier for me. I love being able to just log in on my phone. I'm constantly checking just to make sure that everything's looking right. I'm not seeing any like random fraudulent charges or anything. And that way I'm aware too of like how much I have. What have I spent money on, et cetera. And it just makes it so much easier to manage everything that way. So those are all of my tips. That's how I personally budget my money and how I afford to live on my own and support myself financially. So I hope that you guys found this video helpful. If there was one particular tip that really stood out to you, go ahead and comment that down below. I'd love to hear your thoughts and hopefully I will see you in my next video. Bye. Bye.