Mistakes In My Twenties|01: Savings

Most of us have the general idea that saving is important. The idea of having “a savings” is not a foreign thing, at least I would hope so. However, the skill and discipline of saving is another thing entirely. This is where I hit the wall. Fortunately for me, credit cards and loans are not currently something I am faced with, so as of today and unlike many others, I do not have any legal debts to drown in. I do have those other kinds of debts. You know the ones.Where your family still feeds you and pays your rent or loans you money to do this or that. Just because it’s not on paper, doesn’t mean they aren’t debts. I mentally have a stack of IOU’s that are in the reds.

I was so excited to start making money in my twenties that I didn’t even realize how extra excited I was at spending it. At the time they all felt like necessary things. I never anticipated the major stormy weather that would be just  few years away from knocking at my door. Now to this day, being unemployed and on my last thousand.I can’t help but look back at all those things and just SHAKE MY HEAD.  There were a few things that I could tick off as valuable investments in myself, but now that I need the money I just wish I had worked harder here and there to save up. The worse thing about realizing how much money you’ve spent, is looking at the area on your pay slip that says YTD (Year-To- Day) This area shows how much money the company has paid you from the very beginning. I used to look at that sum of money and cringe.If I had only saved harder…

The journey continues. I aim to end my Stagnant living and this realization of my poor saving habits is just one thing I need to springboard the long and challenging journey to a better more vibrant me. At least that’s the plan anyway.If anyone still reads blogs with no pictures, leave a comment down below to share your stories.

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How Do You Moisturize Locs??

I Need YOUR help! For the duration of my Loc journey, I must say that dry locs has been the #1 struggle. As a loose natural you are able to feed your hair with conditioners and deep treatments resulting in shiny, moist and jaw dropping  healthy hair. With locs however, the danger lies in the risk of build up. We can no longer use the same kinds of products so what and how do we moisturize???? I recently tried a banana coconut deep conditioner only to result in a build up sleep over  in my hair. I am running out of ideas. Although I am a big advocate in experimenting, I am willing to sit this one out and seek some of your counsel. Leave a comment down below or under my YouTube video as well as on Instagram ( blissfulbeni ) letting me know of any tips that you may have specifically for locs. THANK YOU!

Friendships As a Young Adult

I am not a stereotype. I do not know anything about late nights and hangovers. I am completely unfamiliar with allowances and moving out. In my reality, I am thinking about ways to mold today’s me into a me of tomorrow where current me will do a double-take when she meets the me of the future.

After graduating from secondary school, no one tells you how much trials and loose gravel that’s on the road ahead. We are filled with infantile hope of a future.  The surprise that is Young adulthood takes a significant toll on the friendships that we have developed from primary school and onwards. Where you were so keen to speak about every detail of your life, you are now struck with a sense of shame and fear of judgment that you may or may not be where everyone had epected.The job you had thought would soon come has now taken more than six months for even an interview call. Your friends have found work and new boyfriends. Everything is rapidly changing. Suddenly,  You’re faced with you, who you are and who you want to be.

Personal life is so raw when you are no longer in the safety net of school. You are faced with adulting whether you asked for it or not. Bills, loans, break ups, weight-gain, pregnancies, Spiritual warfare, insecurities and gosh, too much more.

The friendships begin to get more and more difficult to maintain.  Certainly, it would now require more effort. You are now able to think carefully on how meaningful one person is to you.If they are worth the effort. You begin to sift out those who speak life too you and weed out the useless negative ones and hopefully, you become stronger as you have let go of the weight of unhealthy relationships. Nothing lasts forever. That is simply, the truth.

Any thoughts on this topic? Leave them down in the coments section!

Book Thoughts: Confessions of a Shopoholic

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

My rating: 5 of 5 stars 

I am so happy I decided to reread this book! after all these years I kept remembering the movie! oh how wrong. This book is amazing and will forever be one of my absolute favorite books of all times! Guaranteed to make you burst out laughing and smile! Amazing read!

I  am not sure if there is anyone in 2017 who had not read Sophie Kinsella but if you haven’t….WHY?? I reread this while being in a place where I just need a pick me up, burst out laughing type of book. I couldn’t have chosen a better book.  For me I am not in the season of rereading.New books are not calling out to me but remembering all the memories of Rebecca Bloomwood’s world keep playing in my head and that is when you know it’s time for a reread.

It had been so long that I was actually mistaken the book for the movie! For shame! I was pleasantly surprised at how Derek Smeath was not as horrible as the movie portrayed him and the romance between Luke and Rebecca had a much different take in the movie that the book. So if you are that girl out there saying “Oh I’ve watched the movie” Stahp. Go read the book.

View all my reviews

2017 Mid-Year Flip Out : Making Moves

 

I remember starting this blog 2 years ago(My First Post Here),Eagerly anticipating the life changes which I was certain would follow It was a roller coaster both emotionally, dealing with the disappointing reality and also physically not previously realizing that a successful blog was not simply going to form overnight.

I found myself constantly hitting the state of disappointment. Yes I was making moves, but why were they  not having any effect? Why aren’t they having any effect even now? Where are the results?

Making moves, I concretely believe is essential to creating ripples which turn into currents that graduate into the waves of opportunities that I so greatly crave. However, there is so much more behind the scenes. Elements like Patience, Longsuffering, hard work and smart work.

I have often been fooled by my dangerously enticing fantasies similar to a recent book I read “Geekerella”, where she wakes up one morning to find that one post has gone viral with amazing numbers that she cannot begin to formulate into words. This is just one example.These things don’t just happen.

Note to Self: Get down to earth level. Never stop making moves. In fact you need to make even more moves.Work harder but work smarter. Do not focus on the future but hit Today hard with Action, Hope and Motivation.      Get a job.

 

Book recommendation:

Matthew 6:25-34New International Version (NIV)

Do Not Worry

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[a]?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.