April and May were good months. I did not spend a lot more than average even though I bought new hobby gear in May. I imagine the summer months to be more expensive as I would like to do other activities then, mainly some old hobbies I did before. Unfortunately those hobbies require stuff to be able to do them which requires me to buy it. Due to the hobbies being kind of new for me I had to buy new stuff and kind of went overboard. I am still striving to find a hobby which does not require a lot of stuff to do. I know of some but it seems those hobbies have a smaller community or people find a way to make you spend money on them anyway, via group lessons or coaching.
Picked up hobbies as skateboarding and inline skating. Good to do some manual work and learn new skills. Also pushing myself due to fear and learning new things in the same skatepark. Is easier now that I have enough income to buy what I want but it still feels wasteful to destroy skateboards, shoes and wheels. Also driving a lot more to skateparks. Perhaps I can keep to my local park most of the time, it has some of the stuff I want to skate and is in cycling distance. I could budget a certain amount of times per month to visit new parks, which would occur more in winter months as the outdoor parks are not as usable.
Did not spend more on other things, perhaps a bit more on fuel for my motorcycle. Although I did start buying equipment for my coming trip which I felt I really needed. But when I had the item in the house it did not use it that much. This is still a work in progress for me to overcome. I spend hours looking at new gear or a new motorcycle, stuff I can now easily afford. But why spend the money when I already have those things just in a lesser form. Imagining the feeling is more exciting than the feeling itself. I guess I am now getting to the hard part of “Wanting what you already have”. Doing almost all the work myself on my motorcycle does save a lot over letting a dealer do the maintenance. And it also gives me an opportunity to do some manual labor and learn new skills.
I did refrain from spending in other categories. During 2020 and 2021 I started wearing out a lot of clothes in my closet. Some don’t fit right anymore and others have gotten some holes in them. I had some extra clothes at my parents but I have started to wear those too. My old shirts will be used as rags before they are tossed and older shirts will go into the wear cycle now. Looks like I could go through 2021 without having to buy something new and probably will make winter 2022 as well.
The biggest mistake I made is getting comfortable in the flow: Not spending much, documenting it in the moment and making an overview each month. Sometimes I would postpone the overview a few days and it would be harder for me to pick up. I have to get back to the level I had at the start of the year in which I was really planning all of my finances. Same thing for blogging and reading, I get comfortable and lose track.
