It's Wednesday and I am very excited to introduce this week's Let's Talk Money guest to you. All the way from San Diego, please welcome Erika from the very popular blog known as From Shopping to Saving. I stumbled upon Erika on Twitter several weeks ago and immediately knew that I wanted to ask her if she was interested in doing this interview so that we could all get to know her better.
Based on her blog posts and tweets Erika strikes me as a very intelligent and very fun person to have in your network. Let's take a closer look at her life and how she handles her money.
Please provide an introduction about yourself and your blog including when you created your blog. If comfortable, please share if you are married and how many children you have.
Hi! My name is Erika and I’m a 24 year old former shopaholic (sorry, this isn’t shopaholics anonymous). I live in San Diego, CA with my boyfriend of 6 years. We don’t have any children except our 7 year old pekingese/toy poodle. I created my blog From Shopping to Saving in October 2010 when I was swimming in consumer debt. I was a shopaholic, and numerous family members and friends used to tell me I had a problem.
After looking at my credit card payment history, I realized I could have saved over $20,000, but instead, I had designer shoes and purses that I didn’t even need or want and I paid so much more for these items because of the huge balance I left on my credit cards. I paid so much in interest and the credit card companies loved me for it. I cried a lot, and I spent the first year of my first real life job getting out of a negative net worth and changing my spending habits.
How did your mom and dad spend money and how did that affect you?
My mom was a single mother and she was extremely cautious and frugal in her spending. McDonald’s was a treat after church on Sundays and I was taught to live a simple lifestyle. When she remarried and when my stepdad was promoted, lifestyle inflation began. Since my mom is an accountant, she STILL shops the sales racks and looks for deals. She also tracks every penny and checks all of her accounts daily. It affected me because I rebelled hard against the frugal spending when I finally had my own job, but now I appreciate and enjoy learning from her and her experiences. The way she persevered - buying a condo with a negative amortization loan, building equity, and now living in a house that is paid off with an investment property on the side - really inspires me.
What is your view point regarding money? Money is meant to be saved? Money is meant to be spent?
At this point in my life, money is meant to be saved. I still have a lot of life experiences to encounter and I still have a family to start. I have a gift fund, travel fund, condo down payment fund, emergency fund, 401k, roth IRA, stock plan with my company, and I want to start a wedding fund and a 529b for my future child. Lots to save for! There are times when I just want to splurge and go on a vacation, but my BF keeps me grounded. We like to talk about our financial frustrations, and how sacrificing now will ultimately lead up to a comfortable future (we hope!)
What is the most expensive item you have ever purchased?
I have made 2 huge purchases that I will never forget. The most expensive pair of shoes that I purchased was through a French website. I paid $300 for them and they only had 1 pair in my size. These shoes were the most in demand shoes at the time by the designer Chloe. I ended up selling them 1 year later for $600.
The most expensive item I purchased was a Chanel bag. It’s a black large diamond stitch tote and I bought it for $2,000. I can’t believe I spent that much on a purse but if you can believe it, this price was a deal since it retails for more and it is very hard to find. I still have the bag and I let my mom borrow it, but it serves as a memory of my shopaholic past life.
Do you own or rent your current living accommodations? Why?
We don’t have a kitchen or a bathroom. I live in a tiny room and it’s like permanent camping. We do have the luxury of storing our stuff in a regular house, but we live in a room. I wouldn’t even call it a shack, but it has worked for us for the past 2 years and I think we will continue to do it until we buy our own place. If you want to read more about how we use the restroom and cook, check it out here. It allows us to save money on rent and allows BF to pay his school loans off aggressively. Everyone makes sacrifices and we are comfortable doing this as long as BF’s parents are okay with it. We like telling ourselves that we live the “best poor life” out there. If you step into our room we have a flat screen TV, PS3, my ipad, my macbook, BF’s computer, and our tiny dog. We have everything we need and we are happy!
If you suddenly won, inherited, or received $100,000 as a gift and you were already debt free, what would you do with it?
I would invest in a property for sure. I think I can put it towards a hefty down payment on a nice condo somewhere with high rental rates so that I would get a profit each month. Ah, that would be nice.
Thank you for having me and if anyone has any other questions, I’d be happy to answer them :)
Erika, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview and for sharing your personal stories with us this week. As I was typing this up I went to each of your links within your answers which led me to posts that you have written over the last year.
They were all quite personal and very interesting and I especially got caught up in reading this one: I was taught to live a simple lifestyle.
Readers, if you have a few extra minutes you will want to click on that link and read about the life Erika lived when she was very young and how her family survived.
Source: http://tacklingourdebt.com/2012/05/02/lets-talk-money-series-erika-shopping-saving/
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