Mia Westrap
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 26-year-old Mia Westrap, a Ph.D. student in the UK. This essay has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider verified her identity and recent spending history.
I have been in and out of debt my entire adult life.
I grew up in a lower working-class background, and when I went to uni, I had no concept of how to manage my money. In three years of being at uni, I managed to get about three grand into my overdraft. Once I graduated and was getting higher paying jobs, the money still wasn't stretching regardless of how I got paid.
I didn't feel like I was living this really extravagant lifestyle. But the reality was I was going out for dinners and drinks all the time and buying the clothes and books that I wanted.
Toward the end of last year, it got to a point where I couldn't really do anything that I wanted to do because I was so stressed with trying to make my money stretch over the month. I decided I could probably try doing one of those "no-buy years."
I made my first ever TikTok video saying my rules for the year — and when I woke up, I had a million and a half views. Now, I had some additional people to hold me accountable.
My "no buy" is essentially everything that's not an absolute necessity.
The only thing that I've really allowed myself to buy that's not an absolute necessity is cinema tickets. I live right next to a cinema and that brings me joy. I go maybe once or twice a month and it's about eight or nine pounds (around $11).
I don't eat out anymore, I don't buy food from small convenience stores, and I really make an effort to do a weekly food shop and make my own meals. As for going out for drinks, I just stick to water and it hasn't stopped me from joining my friends.
I felt like it was going to be this huge change at first, but it was January and I didn't want to be leaving my house anyway because it was freezing outside. It got harder in the summer when I wanted to buy summer clothes, go to a pub garden, treat myself, and have the summer of my dreams.
But to be honest, we figured it out. We went on picnics or walks and if it was difficult, I just tried to get to the end of the day.
Obviously, there's been slip-ups, but not huge ones.
Sometimes I haven't accommodated for the fact that I was going to be hungry out of the house. It's not like I'll go and sit in a restaurant, but in an ideal world, I wouldn't have to hop into a convenience store last minute and pick up a sandwich. Those things happen, but everything is a lot more well thought through now, especially with regard to materialistic things.
I don't think I'm ever gonna go back to mindlessly shopping, especially in the way that I was doing last year.
I've never once in my life finished a month with a positive number — but this year I've finally managed to save.
It's like a weight off my shoulders that I didn't realize I had and I just feel so much lighter. I didn't realize how high stakes it was that I had absolutely nothing to fall back on in an emergency. Now, if anyone in my life were to have an emergency, knowing that I'd be able to support them is a huge ease of anxiety for me.
It's also helped me build more meaningful relationships. My friends and I could sit on the sofa for six hours and we haven't spent a penny. It's been as fun, not more fun, than if we were to go and spend 100 pounds each at a bar. Also, being open and honest about my finances has really opened up my approach to life and now my friends feel like they can reach out to me as well.
In the past, I even stayed in relationships for far too long because I felt like I hadn't been well off enough to be single.
Now, in all aspects of my life, I feel that little bit more freedom and independence.
