Going from School to Adulthood: Navigating the Transition

After 13 years of being in school and an additional four years of college, I found myself at the end of my education. Seventeen years of my life had been spent learning, and it was a surreal feeling to suddenly not have that structure anymore. As I navigated this transition, I began to realize just how much my mindset had shifted. Gone were the days of relying on parents or financial aid to support me; now, I was expected to be self-sufficient.

This newfound independence brought with it a sense of freedom and responsibility. For the first time in my life, I had to take control of my finances, make my own decisions about spending money, and prioritize my needs. One of the biggest surprises for me was just how expensive food could be. In college, everything seemed so cheap – hot dogs and pasta were staples in our diet. But when I finally had a salary, I realized that eating healthy food wasn't always easy or affordable. It's not about being perfect; it's about making choices that make you happy and nourish your body.

Eating well became a priority for me, especially as my income increased. With more money to spend on food, I started to explore healthier options – not necessarily because they were healthy per se, but because they brought me joy. Take apple strudel, for example; it's definitely not the healthiest option, but it's something that makes me happy and gives me energy. It's funny how something as simple as eating can bring such satisfaction. In my early twenties, I also started to appreciate the importance of spending money on things that truly mattered to me.

One area where I've been able to indulge myself is with plants. Pinterest had a significant influence on my life; at first, I thought it was just about aesthetics – having a "jungle" in my apartment or balcony sounded like a great idea. But as time went on, I started to appreciate the responsibility that came with caring for living things. Taking care of succulents and bamboo plants has taught me patience and dedication – skills that will undoubtedly serve me well beyond my twenties.

Another area where I've been able to splurge is in my kitchen. I used to cook almost every meal, but I was stuck with old appliances and pots and pans that had been passed down from my parents for years. When I started investing in new equipment and utensils, it was a game-changer. Good-quality appliances make cooking so much easier, and I've found myself enjoying the process even more.

Frivolous Spending: A Newfound Appreciation

As someone who has always felt guilty about spending money on non-essential things, I've recently developed a new technique for managing my finances. The idea is simple yet effective: each month, I choose one area where I can splurge and cut back in other areas to make up for it. This approach works for both those who tend to overspend and those who feel guilty about spending too much.

For example, if I really want to get acrylic nails or have my nails done, that's going to be my "frivolous thing" for the next year – a $60 expense that I can justify by cutting back in other areas. This approach helps me prioritize what brings me joy and satisfaction, even if it means making some sacrifices elsewhere. As my salary increases, I want to make sure I'm not just investing in smart financial decisions but also taking care of myself.

Finding Happiness in the Little Things

As I navigate this new chapter in my life, I've come to realize that happiness is often found in the little things. Whether it's a good meal, a beautiful plant, or a new kitchen appliance, these small pleasures bring me joy and make life worth living. It's not always easy to prioritize what's truly important, but with time and reflection, I'm learning to appreciate the beauty in everyday moments.

Plant Parenting: A Newfound Joy

I recently started getting into real plants – something that initially intimidated me due to my track record of killing everything green. Starting simple with succulents and bamboo has taught me patience and dedication, skills that will undoubtedly serve me well beyond my twenties. There's something special about nurturing a living thing, watching it grow, and taking care of it when it needs attention.

Kitchen Essentials: A Game-Changer

When I upgraded my kitchen appliances and utensils, it was like a whole new world opened up. Good-quality equipment makes cooking so much easier, and I've found myself enjoying the process even more. Whether it's whipping up a meal or simply making breakfast, these tools have become an essential part of my daily routine.

The Joy of Imperfection: Embracing Frivolity

As someone who has always felt guilty about spending money on non-essential things, I've recently come to appreciate the beauty in imperfection. It's okay to indulge every now and then, to treat myself to something that brings me joy. Whether it's a nice dinner or a new kitchen gadget, these small pleasures are what make life worth living.

In conclusion, navigating this transition from school to adulthood has been a journey of self-discovery. I've learned to prioritize my needs, appreciate the little things, and find happiness in everyday moments. As I move forward, I'm excited to see where life takes me – one meal, plant, or kitchen gadget at a time.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello and welcome to my top 10 purchases i've ever made in my 20s oh you can hear me now if you have never seen me before hello my name is ally and i make videos here on youtube obviously yes you can you can tell that anyway if you already have subscribed to me or have seen me before then you may know that i am 22. and then you may be wondering you know why are you making the top 10 purchases you've ever made in your 20s when you're only two years into your 20s to that i would say i'm turning 23 in two months so in all seriousness i thought it'd be kind of cool to redo this video every few years as i like age through my 20s so make sure to follow me on instagram and subscribe so you can keep up with me and get notified when i'm gonna post part two in like 2024 when i'm 25. now i think most everyone's greatest expense every month and definitely my biggest monthly expense is housing whether that's rent or mortgage myself and i think hopefully most young people start out not in your dream housing whether that's like a ton of roommates or a really small crappy place and i honestly just think it's best to continue that as long as you can stand it i pay between like five and six hundred a month depending on utilities for my rent which is so cheap especially for living in the city i actually have a little video on apartment hunting and how i found this place and why i chose this one but i know if i were to have my own a nice one bedroom it'd probably be like 1200 a month so i'm spending half of what i would normally spend i don't want to clarify that what i'm talking about is specific for renting because you're never going to get this money back everything i spend every month on rent it's just money lost basically versus if you do have a house and there's a dream house you want that has a high mortgage that's going to be a lot more worth the amount of money that you're spending because you can then sell that house in years to come that's ideally for more money which is why houses are considered appreciating assets but if you're renting and you're okay with having roommates maybe not being in your most ideal area or living in a smaller space that is going to save you so much money that can then go to your dream house or condo or whatnot in the future um hi yes i wanted to call about opening a brokerage campus hi mom uh yeah i just opened my brokerage account and i have no idea where to start let's talk about investing this is probably like the best one on this list i honestly wish i could start investing even younger even before my 20s when i was 18. the stock market still like really overwhelms me there are so many different kinds of things you can invest in from individual stocks to mutual funds to index funds you've also got like your roth and your 401k there's a lot going on and a lot of information circling my brain and the internet but even if you're an unexperienced investor like myself just maxing out your roth is a great place to start you can only put in i believe 6 000 every single year earnings on your roth are tax-free which is so great because nothing in this world is tax-free but your roth earnings are tax-free and like i said you can only put in so much every single year so you want to try and max that out as early as possible let's do a little raw calculator why don't we okay so let's say you put in six thousand dollars which i believe is the max you can do and you do that every single year and we're gonna do like a seven percent return which is pretty average for the market and you're going to start when you're 20 retire when you're 65 so by the time you're 65 you're gonna have 1.8 million dollars 1.8 million dollars which is insane now let's say you start when you're 30. by the age of 65 when you retire you'll have just over 893 thousand dollars which is still a lot of money but that is less than half the amount of money if you had just started 10 years earlier that's honestly just hands down gotta be the best purchase of your 20s one of the best purchases i've ever made is definitely the furniture in my apartment my furniture is definitely a hodgepodge of very nice furniture and old furniture from like my childhood home or thrifted or things like that and i honestly think that's like the perfect mix when you're young there are certain pieces like my accent chair that i absolutely love and my couch that i know i'm going to want to take with me from place to place because i just really love them but then there are other pieces of furniture like my rug that i know is going to get super dirty from having friends over so i didn't invest in a very good rug at all it was just like the cheapest one i could find so i would definitely say pick and choose what furniture you know you want to carry with you and then other furniture that you know is going to get dirty or maybe like a trend or fad definitely get on the cheaper end why am i sitting on the floor right next to a chair you know couldn't tell you but we're about to talk about clothes not about you we are right right now we're talking about it so i personally think there's like two good ways to invest in clothes the first is to buy expensive pieces that you're gonna wear often and for a long time i think the best example of this is probably my doc martens i wear them all the time especially in winter so i wear them frequently check as long as they're still in good shape 5 10 20 however many years from now i'm gonna keep wearing them because they're just like a staple black winter boots and then on the other hand you have like trendy items bad items or items that you're just not sure is going to be your style in a few years and i like to get these as cheap as possible or better yet thrift them i'm starting like a little like colored cargo pants collection which i really love but i also know it's probably a fad and i may not like them even in a year from now so i'm not gonna spend like a hundred dollars on them you know overall i would say clothes are a great investment in your 20s as long as you recognize what items you should actually spend good money on next is my camera gear now i know my camera gear is very specific to me but just in general i think it's important to invest in two things into yourself number one even if i made zero money from youtube youtube is still my number one hobby it's what i try and work on every single day sometimes i have a really hard time rationalizing is that how you say it rationalize sometimes i have a really hard time rationalizing spending a lot of money on camera stuff because youtube at this point is still my hobby but that's such a dumb mindset because i literally spend some amount of time every single day doing youtube so why would i not invest money in something even just a hobby that i do every day so my number one point is invest in your hobbies if it's something you're doing regularly and you've done for a long time spend some money on yourself and the things you like doing whether that's like painting and then my second point and this may not apply to everyone but if you would one day like your hobby to be your full-time career then it is so extra worth investing in it's worth investing in your hobbies and your dreams that you want to one day become a career because then if it does become a career you will make some monies from that hopefully recoup all the money you have spent in your early days and if it never becomes your career again like i said it's your hobby that you're doing every day so that's still worth it everything you said they already knew more or less oh here's something that you didn't know actually not only read ebooks and i'm pretty sure this is a book i read for like 11th grade english but uh ebooks are a lot less interesting to show on camera when i mention books it doesn't have to be books it can be any form of education i'd really encourage you to look into like a topic or perspective or like thought process that you've like never researched or heard of really before in college i think my favorite classes were human sexuality and environmental science which literally had nothing to do with my major or my career at all but i feel like they made me the most well-rounded also it's so weird going from being in school for literally what 13 years and then four years of college 17 years we're in school for 17 years of our life if you go to college which is so long and then it's just over like just no more education you just work that's it that's all that's left so i don't know it's weird for me to like think about never like learning anything new so books are a great way to go to school again without having to pay for a semester's tuition i do think that eating good food is so important especially when you have a salary you got some more money monies i know in college literally everything ate was pasta um shamefully lots of hot dogs so yeah we were eating the best but now like i said if i actually have a salary i feel like it's so important to eat good and this doesn't even necessarily mean healthy even just eating things that make you happy and are tasty i feel like is a real life changer in a weird way like this apple strudel i just got a costume that is probably so bad for you but it is so good and i am so happy when i eat it most of the time i'm eating it for breakfast which is also bad but we're just gonna forget that also the more money that you have to spend on food the more money you have to spend on healthy foods healthy foods are a lot of times more expensive than cheaper fatty foods spending money on food is a great purchase in your 20s fake plants or preferably real plants i'm someone who got suckered into the pinterest of basically having a jungle in your apartment or outside your apartment if you have a balcony but honestly i'm glad i got suckered in in all seriousness i started out owning all fake plants as you can see they're around me and i just love all the like greenery and warmth that they add to your apartment and then i recently started getting some real plants i started out simple with like some succulents some bamboo really easy things hard to kill this is gonna sound so cheesy but i just love having like the responsibility of taking care of something of being like a little plant mom the point is i feel like it's just cool especially in your 20s to have something to take care of even if it's just as simple as watering a plant something that holds you accountable holds you responsible and that you feel proud of when it grows maybe for you that's a goldfish or a golden retriever or a baby okay i should not be comparing plants to children cheers to that the next thing on my list is good appliances i somehow lost the rest of the footage that i filmed for this section but to summarize i cook almost every single day and i had just been using old appliances and old pots and pans that i got from my parents that they had had for like 20 years prior so i started investing in some good kitchen appliances and i also bought this like 60 pan which felt like a weird splurge but it is so nice and i just think investing in good kitchen appliances and utensils is so worth it you eat three meals a day you can splurge on something you're literally consuming three times a day well i guess you're only cooking like once a day but still you get the point you guys are watching me do this with music but to me without the music i just hear my earrings go the whole time okay so this category is frivolous things now i know that sounds really general so let me explain i as a person have this thing where i always feel really guilty spending money on something that's like not important and you maybe like me or you may be someone who spends way too much money so this kind of like financial technique works for both kinds of people the big spenders and the guilty spenders but basically i try and pick one thing every month to like splurge on and then i cut out all the other frivolous stuff that's like not the most important thing to me so for example i really want to get acrylic nails and i really want to get my nails done so that's going to be like my frivolous thing for the next year that's going to make me happy and that i'm excited about so if my nails cost say 60 that month then i'm going to try and cut out 60 of spending from like getting coffee clothes etc all the things that i'm just spending on that don't really make me that happy as you get later and later into your 20s your salary will also hopefully keep increasing as well so i feel like it's important to not just buy things that are like really smart like investing or like a good apartment but also to spend things on youth that are just fun and yeah that's my 10th best purchase i've made so far in my 20s me uhhello and welcome to my top 10 purchases i've ever made in my 20s oh you can hear me now if you have never seen me before hello my name is ally and i make videos here on youtube obviously yes you can you can tell that anyway if you already have subscribed to me or have seen me before then you may know that i am 22. and then you may be wondering you know why are you making the top 10 purchases you've ever made in your 20s when you're only two years into your 20s to that i would say i'm turning 23 in two months so in all seriousness i thought it'd be kind of cool to redo this video every few years as i like age through my 20s so make sure to follow me on instagram and subscribe so you can keep up with me and get notified when i'm gonna post part two in like 2024 when i'm 25. now i think most everyone's greatest expense every month and definitely my biggest monthly expense is housing whether that's rent or mortgage myself and i think hopefully most young people start out not in your dream housing whether that's like a ton of roommates or a really small crappy place and i honestly just think it's best to continue that as long as you can stand it i pay between like five and six hundred a month depending on utilities for my rent which is so cheap especially for living in the city i actually have a little video on apartment hunting and how i found this place and why i chose this one but i know if i were to have my own a nice one bedroom it'd probably be like 1200 a month so i'm spending half of what i would normally spend i don't want to clarify that what i'm talking about is specific for renting because you're never going to get this money back everything i spend every month on rent it's just money lost basically versus if you do have a house and there's a dream house you want that has a high mortgage that's going to be a lot more worth the amount of money that you're spending because you can then sell that house in years to come that's ideally for more money which is why houses are considered appreciating assets but if you're renting and you're okay with having roommates maybe not being in your most ideal area or living in a smaller space that is going to save you so much money that can then go to your dream house or condo or whatnot in the future um hi yes i wanted to call about opening a brokerage campus hi mom uh yeah i just opened my brokerage account and i have no idea where to start let's talk about investing this is probably like the best one on this list i honestly wish i could start investing even younger even before my 20s when i was 18. the stock market still like really overwhelms me there are so many different kinds of things you can invest in from individual stocks to mutual funds to index funds you've also got like your roth and your 401k there's a lot going on and a lot of information circling my brain and the internet but even if you're an unexperienced investor like myself just maxing out your roth is a great place to start you can only put in i believe 6 000 every single year earnings on your roth are tax-free which is so great because nothing in this world is tax-free but your roth earnings are tax-free and like i said you can only put in so much every single year so you want to try and max that out as early as possible let's do a little raw calculator why don't we okay so let's say you put in six thousand dollars which i believe is the max you can do and you do that every single year and we're gonna do like a seven percent return which is pretty average for the market and you're going to start when you're 20 retire when you're 65 so by the time you're 65 you're gonna have 1.8 million dollars 1.8 million dollars which is insane now let's say you start when you're 30. by the age of 65 when you retire you'll have just over 893 thousand dollars which is still a lot of money but that is less than half the amount of money if you had just started 10 years earlier that's honestly just hands down gotta be the best purchase of your 20s one of the best purchases i've ever made is definitely the furniture in my apartment my furniture is definitely a hodgepodge of very nice furniture and old furniture from like my childhood home or thrifted or things like that and i honestly think that's like the perfect mix when you're young there are certain pieces like my accent chair that i absolutely love and my couch that i know i'm going to want to take with me from place to place because i just really love them but then there are other pieces of furniture like my rug that i know is going to get super dirty from having friends over so i didn't invest in a very good rug at all it was just like the cheapest one i could find so i would definitely say pick and choose what furniture you know you want to carry with you and then other furniture that you know is going to get dirty or maybe like a trend or fad definitely get on the cheaper end why am i sitting on the floor right next to a chair you know couldn't tell you but we're about to talk about clothes not about you we are right right now we're talking about it so i personally think there's like two good ways to invest in clothes the first is to buy expensive pieces that you're gonna wear often and for a long time i think the best example of this is probably my doc martens i wear them all the time especially in winter so i wear them frequently check as long as they're still in good shape 5 10 20 however many years from now i'm gonna keep wearing them because they're just like a staple black winter boots and then on the other hand you have like trendy items bad items or items that you're just not sure is going to be your style in a few years and i like to get these as cheap as possible or better yet thrift them i'm starting like a little like colored cargo pants collection which i really love but i also know it's probably a fad and i may not like them even in a year from now so i'm not gonna spend like a hundred dollars on them you know overall i would say clothes are a great investment in your 20s as long as you recognize what items you should actually spend good money on next is my camera gear now i know my camera gear is very specific to me but just in general i think it's important to invest in two things into yourself number one even if i made zero money from youtube youtube is still my number one hobby it's what i try and work on every single day sometimes i have a really hard time rationalizing is that how you say it rationalize sometimes i have a really hard time rationalizing spending a lot of money on camera stuff because youtube at this point is still my hobby but that's such a dumb mindset because i literally spend some amount of time every single day doing youtube so why would i not invest money in something even just a hobby that i do every day so my number one point is invest in your hobbies if it's something you're doing regularly and you've done for a long time spend some money on yourself and the things you like doing whether that's like painting and then my second point and this may not apply to everyone but if you would one day like your hobby to be your full-time career then it is so extra worth investing in it's worth investing in your hobbies and your dreams that you want to one day become a career because then if it does become a career you will make some monies from that hopefully recoup all the money you have spent in your early days and if it never becomes your career again like i said it's your hobby that you're doing every day so that's still worth it everything you said they already knew more or less oh here's something that you didn't know actually not only read ebooks and i'm pretty sure this is a book i read for like 11th grade english but uh ebooks are a lot less interesting to show on camera when i mention books it doesn't have to be books it can be any form of education i'd really encourage you to look into like a topic or perspective or like thought process that you've like never researched or heard of really before in college i think my favorite classes were human sexuality and environmental science which literally had nothing to do with my major or my career at all but i feel like they made me the most well-rounded also it's so weird going from being in school for literally what 13 years and then four years of college 17 years we're in school for 17 years of our life if you go to college which is so long and then it's just over like just no more education you just work that's it that's all that's left so i don't know it's weird for me to like think about never like learning anything new so books are a great way to go to school again without having to pay for a semester's tuition i do think that eating good food is so important especially when you have a salary you got some more money monies i know in college literally everything ate was pasta um shamefully lots of hot dogs so yeah we were eating the best but now like i said if i actually have a salary i feel like it's so important to eat good and this doesn't even necessarily mean healthy even just eating things that make you happy and are tasty i feel like is a real life changer in a weird way like this apple strudel i just got a costume that is probably so bad for you but it is so good and i am so happy when i eat it most of the time i'm eating it for breakfast which is also bad but we're just gonna forget that also the more money that you have to spend on food the more money you have to spend on healthy foods healthy foods are a lot of times more expensive than cheaper fatty foods spending money on food is a great purchase in your 20s fake plants or preferably real plants i'm someone who got suckered into the pinterest of basically having a jungle in your apartment or outside your apartment if you have a balcony but honestly i'm glad i got suckered in in all seriousness i started out owning all fake plants as you can see they're around me and i just love all the like greenery and warmth that they add to your apartment and then i recently started getting some real plants i started out simple with like some succulents some bamboo really easy things hard to kill this is gonna sound so cheesy but i just love having like the responsibility of taking care of something of being like a little plant mom the point is i feel like it's just cool especially in your 20s to have something to take care of even if it's just as simple as watering a plant something that holds you accountable holds you responsible and that you feel proud of when it grows maybe for you that's a goldfish or a golden retriever or a baby okay i should not be comparing plants to children cheers to that the next thing on my list is good appliances i somehow lost the rest of the footage that i filmed for this section but to summarize i cook almost every single day and i had just been using old appliances and old pots and pans that i got from my parents that they had had for like 20 years prior so i started investing in some good kitchen appliances and i also bought this like 60 pan which felt like a weird splurge but it is so nice and i just think investing in good kitchen appliances and utensils is so worth it you eat three meals a day you can splurge on something you're literally consuming three times a day well i guess you're only cooking like once a day but still you get the point you guys are watching me do this with music but to me without the music i just hear my earrings go the whole time okay so this category is frivolous things now i know that sounds really general so let me explain i as a person have this thing where i always feel really guilty spending money on something that's like not important and you maybe like me or you may be someone who spends way too much money so this kind of like financial technique works for both kinds of people the big spenders and the guilty spenders but basically i try and pick one thing every month to like splurge on and then i cut out all the other frivolous stuff that's like not the most important thing to me so for example i really want to get acrylic nails and i really want to get my nails done so that's going to be like my frivolous thing for the next year that's going to make me happy and that i'm excited about so if my nails cost say 60 that month then i'm going to try and cut out 60 of spending from like getting coffee clothes etc all the things that i'm just spending on that don't really make me that happy as you get later and later into your 20s your salary will also hopefully keep increasing as well so i feel like it's important to not just buy things that are like really smart like investing or like a good apartment but also to spend things on youth that are just fun and yeah that's my 10th best purchase i've made so far in my 20s me uh\n"