Personal Narrative: My Mistakes

Mistakes are the perfect opportunity to learn and grow. When I was 9, I started my first business selling freezes. I budgeted for the expense of buying the freezes and sold them for $1 each to ensure I made a profit. Now, I could have used the profits from my successful business to invest in some reliable mutual or index funds and earned interest on my earnings. This would have allowed me to make money on my money and accumulate more wealth over time. At the very least, I could have saved some of the money for a later occasion. However, at the time I was not aware of how to effectively manage my finances. Hence, instead of thinking in the long term I decided to spend every penny of my hard earned cash on rocks. Among my purchases were an iridescent opal, a vial of gold flakes and a shiny piece of goldstone. Their bright colors and smooth surfaces were to tempting for me to resist. I even paid extra for the goldstone to have a slight indent in it for no real reason except that it looked slightly more appealing. …show more content…
I later learned that setting money aside to save or invest is essential when I am managing my finances. Before I even received or earned money I would allocate it all to one investment option, spending. But I found out that there was another option I should consider. It is important to allocate money to savings before receiving it to ensure that it is already spoken for and not viewed as disposable income. This new perspective on money management is the reason that I moved from saving 50% of my funds, from special occasions, to saving 100%. It dawned on me that I did not actually need the majority of the items I was buying, and that all of my money would be better utilized if it was saved instead. Although currently I may make the odd impulse purchase, nearly all of my money from events such as my birthday and Christmas is now saved and