Fact - 2020 was a bitch.
I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way. The whole "stay inside" part was fairly okay for me, because I'm an anti-social person who also happens to be very introverted and easily annoyed by stupid people.
But the rest... I didn't like the rest.
One of the biggest problems I had in 2020 is that my entire financial situation went to hell. I got a job in 2019 hoping that towards the end of 2020 I'll be able to move out of my parent's house and find a new job that I would hopefully like in a new and bigger city.
Here's what actually happened: at the beginning of 2020 my mother lost her job, she got sick and she needed a fairly big amount of money for all kind of treatments (not, it wasn't Covid, it was something completely different).
While that happened, because my parents made several loans throughout the years from a bank in order to buy certain needed things (the most recent one being a car after the other one got destroyed in a car accident where no one was hurt) they had to pay a certain amount of money to the bank every month, which was added to the expense list.
Lastly, a big old debt started creeping in. In short, my parents had to get around $650 - $700 from another institution a few years ago in order for them to buy something required for our house in one winter, and the institution decided that 2020 is the year it wants its money back.
So basically all my savings went into helping my parents. I had to help my mother with her medical expenses, had to help both of my parents with their main bank debts, and then I had to help them with the last debt (which I paid mostly myself) because otherwise there would've been trouble.
Not the mention other things such as utility bills, food, etc.
Funny enough, in 2021 I also lost my job, and I couldn't find another one for a few months, up until February. Work was supposed to start in March, but it was postponed due to Covid. Hopefully we'll start at the end of this month.
All in all, 2020 was shit. But, as bad as it might've been, it taught me a lot of lessons about money that I thought I'd share with you here. It doesn't matter who you are and how well you're doing now financially, things can get ugly quick, so making sure you have some good money-related habits is absolutely vital.
It's a short list with 4 pieces of advice, so let's begin.
Learn to save money
This is the only reason we managed to get through that rough period. Not only did my parents manage to save some money here and there to pay for most of my mother's medical expenses, but I also saved most of the money I was making at my old job.
I don't smoke, don't drink, and don't particularly like spending money on things other people absolutely adore, such as parties, weddings, expensive clothes, and so on. Therefore, I kept most of the money I made. Besides, I wanted to move, so that was an extra motivator.
The simple fact that I saved so much money is one of the big reasons why we managed to get over all the bad things that happened last year. I was able to help my parents a lot, was able to help them pay off a big debt, and several small ones, and I was able to provide them with food and pay the bills.
Last but not least, when things got even uglier, this year, in March, and we ran out of money completely, I remembered that I was fairly smart one day when I was on Steemit, decided to power down pretty much all I had just in case something bad might happen, and kept all my STEEM there, just in case.
I had around 636 STEEM laying around, which, at the time, was worth around $220 , which was just enough to get us through that particularly ugly moment. If not for the money, thing's would've been way uglier.
All in all, one of the main reasons we managed to still do well was the fact that both me and my parents had money saved, just in case, from our jobs. If not for that, I don't really know what we would've done.
Learn to spend less
This goes hand in hand with the advice from above. Learning how to spend smart is extremely important. Wanting to save, then spending hundreds of dollars every month on things that you don't need isn't the brightest idea.
Things such as smoking would've made it way harder for me to save money. Buying expensive clothes that I didn't need would've made the process very difficult. Weddings, parties, same. Fancy food - useless. Fancy gadgets - even worse.]
The list can go on.
Reducing your expenses to things you really need, such as paying bills, buying food, and so on, is a big part of saving. Here's an example - I live in Romania currently and here a pack of cigarettes can cost up to $5 - $6 which isn't cheap at all here.
For someone who smokes 2 packs a week, that's around $40 a month, which is not cheap at all. For someone who smokes more, the price goes up. I used to know people who smoked a pack a day. That's $5 - $6 a day. That's $300, more or less, every month. In Romania $300 can be your entire paycheck, depending on who you are, what your job is and where you live.
Drinking is just as bad. A beer is around 5 cents. Buying several beers every day will cost more and more, until, again, you end up not saving money and spending it on something you really don't need.
I'm not even gonna mention the other examples from above. Clothes, especially good ones, are expensive as hell. Same goes for shoes. Weddings are incredibly useless and expensive money suckers, parties as well, gadgets as well, and so on.
Not being a smoker, or a drinker, and not enjoying expensive clothes, parties, weddings, and so on, helped me save a lot of money throughout all of 2020 and before. If you want to save money, but you spend the majority of it on dumb vices, then you're not doing yourself any favor.
Have multiple sources of income
I can't count the amount of times that this saved my ass during this rough period.
Having Graphic River and Creative Market as two passive sources of income that brought me even $30 - $40 a month was extremely helpful, especially because I didn't have to do anything for that money. I spent two years working on design packages, uploaded them all to those websites (whatever I could), and left them there. Occasionally someone would purchase something and I would make some money, and that was really damn useful.
Having some Steem saved also helped a lot, I already mentioned that. Writing for Hive was also a good idea, whenever I could do it, and trading on the internal market was just as useful, although not very passive.
I can honestly say that having multiple sources of income was a blessing, no matter how little I was making. If I was able to get an extra $30 at the end of the month, that amount of money could help me pay a bill, or buy some extra food, or buy something we needed around the house.
I really recommend that you try to build other sources of income as well, either using a skill you have, or learning a new skill. If you like design, then Graphic River and / or Creative Market could be great places to upload your work on.
If you like writing, don't wait, and begin writing on Hive. If you feel like you can write a lot of articles, you can post on multiple websites, such as Medium, or try to make your own website and post there hoping you'll get a following in the future and maybe you'll make something there.
The idea is for you to not rely on a single source of income. If I wouldn't have had all the ones that I mentioned after I lost my job at the end of 2020, things would've been way worse than they were. But because I still had some money saved, and because I still made money online, even a little, with my other sources, that made things easier.
Learn to invest
This is the final piece of advice I'm gonna give to you. Before I begin I should mention that I am not a financial consultant and whatever I say is only based on my opinion and my experience. Do your own research before putting your money into something and don't be dumb - don't use money you really need.
Investing as an idea came to me fairly recently after reading a few books on how to make money. I'm not gonna go in-depth about where you should invest, and how I did my research and all that, because I don't really know what you should invest in, and it will take too long to talk about my experience. Do your own research to see what fits you.
I did it with crypto, because I had Hive as a source of income that directly provided me with some money, in this case Hive & HBD that I could use to invest.
I'm still at the very beginning, therefore I can't tell you a story about how I made millions, because I didn't. I did start, however, with investing into Dogecoin (yes, I went in on the hype) right when Elon tweeted about it for the first time, which was already very late. I invested around $10 worth of HBD in Dogecoin when it was around $0.04 something, and later invested an extra $20 when the price was around $0.5.
I can honestly say that it was a good idea for me. In total, I invested $30 and I currently have $90 worth of Dogecoin in my wallet. I sold it all for now, as I'm seeing the price slowly going down, and I'm gonna buy again when things start to settle.
I also made very small investments into two coins that might or might not prove profitable (but I did it just in case, seeing some kind of a hype around them), mainly Shiba Inu, and Dogelon. I invested around $5 into Shiba, and $2 into Dogelon. Here things need to be made very clear - I invested money that I didn't particularly need, money I could afford to spend. I don't expect to get rich over night. Those are money I'm not gonna touch in a long time.
The main idea is that currently, investing worked well. I invested $30 and got $90 in return, and I invested some small amounts here and there to see what else will happen. Some more serious projects I want put some money into are Polkadot and I'll also think about Internet Computer (ICP), but I need to first get some more money to invest into that.
I also keep the Hive and HBD that I made through writing and I trade it on the internal marketplace of Hive in order to increase what I currently have.
The idea of investing is to protect your future. If you're doing financially well right now, you can spare some money to invest into different things that you think might help you earn some extra money. The idea that you need thousands of dollars to invest is simply not true. If you can spare $10 - $20 every month, and you either invest it into something you really believe in, or you do as I do, and you divide the money and invest it into multiple things, you might make a profit in the future.
Again, you should always invest money you don't really need, money you can afford to lose. It's a really good idea. If I would've been smart and I would've invested even a part of those 636 Steem I had a few months ago, maybe now I would've had way more money at my disposal. But, what's done is done, and the time has passed. I need to focus on my current actions.
Conclusion
This article was a bit longer than what I usually write, but I wanted to give some advice based on the things that I experienced myself. Dealing with money can be hard, especially when you have it - you spend it stupidly thinking you'll never run out, you'll never save, and when things start going downhill, that's when you realize it would've been good to have some savings or additional sources of income or investments as a backup.
The fact that I was fairly smart with my money, saving it, and not spending it on useless things, helped me not only go through 2020, which was rough, but it also allowed me to help my parents in a very difficult moment and make it easy for them to get out of a pit of bad luck.
Now things are slowly starting to change.
I am receiving quite a lot of rewards for the articles I'm posting here, something I am really grateful for. Not only does it help me a lot, but it gives me more motivation to write better and better articles.
I might also finally start working at the job I got at the end of this month, which will be great. It's a season-based job, so I'll be busy with it for just a few months, until the end of the year, but the pay is good, and that's important. I will probably have to stop posting in June because I will not have access to my computer, and I need to get my first paycheck to buy a laptop, and even then posting will be harder, because I will spend most of my day working. But, I'll try to both focus on my job and post whenever I get some free time.
I will continue dealing with my money in a smart way, especially when it comes to spending it. I'm not thinking about starting to smoke, or to drink, and I don't feel a need to buy new clothes every 2 days, so I'll keep my habits intact - I'll spend little, and I'll save as much as I can.
Finally, I'll keep on investing. $10 here, $20 there, whatever I can afford. I might use some of the money I'll make at the job, and some of the money I'm making on Hive , or even Steemit. The more money I can secure through investing, maybe even multiplying, the better.
Dealing with money is something that you need to learn as soon as possible. I, luckily, knew about saving, and not spending a lot of money before I even started making decent amounts. I was also lucky to work as a freelancer for 2 years and secure two additional sources of income for myself before things started going bad. I didn't do investing, but I am doing it now, and I'm sure it will only help me in the future.
Those are some pieces of advice I hope you'll at least consider thinking about when you'll deal with money. You never know when things can go really wrong around you. Having to deal with the lack of money, despite the problems that might appear, is horrible. Being smart before those problems appear, and handling your money in a smart way can literally save you from extremely ugly situations.