I feel like I'm spending too much. Please tell me how I should manage my money?

Wowowowow... hold on there.
A car?
Sure, they are maybe as cheapest as $3k~
But buying a car, specially a used one is buying problems.
Let alone aside the gas, you also will spend on maintainence/insurance and many other things. Getting a car gives you a lot of benefits but it also burdens you with a lot of responsabilities.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is that:
Think about that twice, if you can handle everything that it implicates owning a car then go for it.

Wowowowow... hold on there.
A car?
Sure, they are maybe as cheapest as $3k~
But buying a car, specially a used one is buying problems.
Let alone aside the gas, you also will spend on maintainence/insurance and many other things. Getting a car gives you a lot of benefits but it also burdens you with a lot of responsabilities.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is that:
Think about that twice, if you can handle everything that it implicates owning a car then go for it.

I'll need a car eventually, won't I?
...is what I've been telling myself. I don't know. I have to take into consideration where I'll be going to school. It'd be silly to buy a car if I end up studying overseas, which may be a possibility. In any case, it would hurt to save up the money anyway. You never know when you need a throwaway car to hide a body or something.

Yeah you will. Pretty much everyone will.
But can you budget handle all that? If not then wait for your incomes to increase, then again if your parents can help you with the overall maintainence of the car then it's all god.

I'd disagree on this point, credit cards are great if you have a budget. I exclusively use my credit card to pay for everything, and I pay it off at the end of every month. The money sits in my account longer and I get rewards, which have totaled to over $100 so far this year.

My problem is i don't actually have a budget, and although i'm getting used to paying my rent every month, a credit card would probably get me into trouble for that reason.

Maybe once i get into those better spending habits where i develop a budget then i'll feel safe enough but i don't feel that getting one before that will help me keep track of one. Although i could see it doing that if it like scares me into it but that doesn't sound fun lol.

Two "Danger Areas" for me are eating out and online transactions. In both these areas I always spend way more than I intentionally set out to spend. Purchases are always one click away and restaurant food is delicious, so be wary.


At this point I am planning on ditching maple because of that.

Always pretend you're broke. You'll always have money if you do that.

Something my horticulture teacher in high school always told us was that if we get a credit card and want to keep a good credit rating, don't go making a few large purchases, but make a moderate amount of smaller purchases. Reason being that if you're only making smaller purchases and you're good about keeping track of your balance after you buy things, it's harder to go over your budget and takes much less time to pay off, all the while keeping a decent credit rating.
Just remember not to let those small purchases keep building up. Moderation with your spending really is key when it comes to credit cards, I've learned.

His line of reasoning for teaching us stuff like this was that if we couldn't have an actual class for it, he'd at least do what he could to help us out.

You have complete control of doing whatever it is that you choose to do. Just apply that control to satisfy your true self.

You have complete control of doing whatever it is that you choose to do. Just apply that control to satisfy your true self.

Wayyyyyy easier said than done.

As far as making a budget, you could try using online software such as mint.com, and integrate it with your smartphone. Mint isn't perfect, but it definitely has its uses

Savings. Start a saving. If you make it your highest priority, the necessities will take care of the rest of your buying power. You won't be left with much for trivials.

Use only as necessary. Avoid everything that needs constant maintenance e.g. car. You should consider buying bike instead. Unless it's beyond your strength, then go for public transport. I don't know which is more expensive over there, so do the math yourself. Make a list of what you've spent each days and how much income you'll get on each month. You'll see the picture of what you could've avoided.

I, for example, only bought a bike and an air card for internet access (my room's internet is utter pomegranate). My daily expense is just 3 meals of food. That's it. I don't even have credit card. I believe it will somehow persuade you to spend more than you can find. I use MS excel to list things I've spent each days, and how much I have left until I hit red.

But in the end, you have to stop buying those stuffs by yourself. Before buying, think of the cheaper alternatives first.

I just want to say thanks to everyone who replied. I am in a pretty similar situation and these tips are definitely going to be helping me out too. Just transferred 500$ to savings, and definitely growing with my next deposit.
I'm the same way, impulse buying. I need to block Amazon. So much money wasted.

Thanks Joyce for making this thread and everyone else for their thoughtful replies. Really changed my way of thinking regarding money.

You should always just straight up save 10-20% of your paycheck. Even if it's worthless, it's a dicipline that will run you out in the long run. Doing more than that isn't that smart because you'll end up transfering back which your bank will probably eventually fine you for.

As for your car scenario, you're probably going to be looking at something around 20k, 25 being absolute max but hardly encouraged. You'll need a 3-4k downpayment (minimum for most dealers is 2k to 18-20k range), where you're looking at probably a monthly 250-350 payment. You should always want to pay off your loans but car's are kind of an exception, it's nice to pay off but you can use it as leverage for an exchange for a new car.

You could also look at low credit cards, you should use it as a method of management rather than "ready later cash". I originally used them to kind of graph out how much I spent on something like groceries or gas. But for you, it should be kind of emergency pay off. You buy dinner, you're 8 bucks short, you use your credit card and pay it off next weeks check or something. For the type of purchases you're making, managing this shouldn't be difficult. Especially if it's low, worse case is you're looking 300-500 deep, you stop spending and focus on it for a month, it's gone, and most credit cards offer monthly payments which are fractions yet keep your interest down.

Not sure if my input is very good or very bad on this subject, because I've always been a maximum skinflint; I barely spend $100 in luxuries on myself in a year, so, usually just a game or two and maybe a book. I find alternative ways for paying subscriptions on games, usually I can talk a friend into subbing for me if I pay them "x" ingame money in the game of their choosing per month. Same with cash shop purchases. It'll be a bit hard to manage that if you have any friends whatsoever, though, since I consider movies/going out to eat/snacks as luxuries too. As for clothes...I've had mostly the same stuff for 10+ years, my only pair of shoes are actually 14 years old and still look fine because I don't actually -do- anything to muss them all up. Clothes are a much bigger issue for most people though, so it's hard to give advice on how to spend on that when my life perspective is so skewed, lol.

And yeah, the goal isn't to guilt yourself out of purchasing things, it's to simply not want to purchase them in the first place; guilting yourself is worse than just buying the stuff, stress is not something anyone needs.

Budget planners help. Also, they do teach it in school. Economics. Also, I learned about savings and bank accounts when I was in 5th grade when we had fake check books, fake jobs, fake incomes, fake everything and learned how to manage money. 1991 was a good year. I learned a lot in math :-)