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Today's most tedious and inane word in anyone's vocabulary is, budgeting. Let me say it again, budgeting. I can hear you switching off already, yawning. At the age of eighteen the only word missing from my vocabulary was budgeting; in case you are wondering the most common word I could think of was, partying. I can only surmise this comes of no surprise to you.

Nightclubs. Champagne, French of course and when I was feeling bright and trendy, I would visit my local market, purchase fresh flowers, my weekly groceries and spectacularly the word budget never reared its head.

Occasionally I would hear of friends buying their first car, eventually buying their first home, but not me I was clever and trendy, I had fresh spring flowers and a screaming hangover. All I could afford to put away for a rainy day was ten-dollars a week; where would ten-dollars a week put me, not in my own car or home.

Ten-dollars a week was hardly worth it, really!

At the age of thirty-eight I purchased my first home. Wow, look at me. Now I wonder what good it would've done me to put ten-dollars away each week for the last twenty years.

$10 x 52 weeks = $520 per year

$520 x 20 years = $10,400

That's $10,400 without applying interest I would've earned in an interest bearing account, say 7% each year for twenty years. Also, not to mention that the wage I was earning at the age of eighteen has quadrupled in twenty years.

What if I had put ten-dollars away for the first five years, then twenty-dollars away for the next five years and then thirty dollars away each week for the next five years and then forty-dollars for the last five years?

The first 5 years at $10 per week = $ 2,600
The next 5 years at $20 per week = $ 5,200
The next 5 years at $30 per week = $ 7,800
The last 5 years at $40 per week = $ 10,400

That's $26,000 over twenty years without applying that mysterious 7% bank interest, per year, without trying, caring or thinking about having any extra money in my pocket.

In the bigger scheme of life, $26,000 won't change my life and it's not an amount of money I can retire on; however, it's $26,000 (plus 7% interest over 20 years) I could've put towards to purchasing my home.

My parting thought about my stupidity and lack of caring for my financial future, those twenty years have been and gone (they went by regardless) and the only part missing from my life is $26,000 (7% interest).

Lessons Learnt: budgeting is the most interesting word I have ever muttered in my life.

Learn more about this author, Darren Brealey.
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