Dude, where’s my savings spent?

I WOULD hate for my mother to actually catch a glimpse of my bank account.

For someone who’s been eagerly scrambling for money since I was 12 years old (paper round and all), there sure is a sad lack of zeros spread over those three “savings” accounts.

Good saving habits? Nothing of the sort to see here.

Two years ago my parents proudly presented me with a copy of financial guru Scott Pape’s book The Barefoot In

vestor for Christmas. If that wasn’t a massive slap in the face hint I don’t know what is.

Yet still, It sits collecting dust on my bedside table, to be occasionally perused when things start to get dire. Where has all this money gone you must be wondering?

Am I just really that awful? Is my bedroom full of material objects? Well, maybe.

But a big chunk of those funds has gone towards an intense desire to see what the grass is like across the ocean.

I was incredibly fortunate to be able to go overseas with my family when I was a child (my poor parents, everything is expensive with children) and that fascination just really hasn’t seemed to fade. All I’ve ever wanted to do is see things I have never seen and experience cultures unlike my own. And the world is one big, expensive place. In the short time since leaving high school, I’ve managed to tick quite a few things off my bucket list. I’ve done an exchange at a foreign school (and I couldn’t speak a word of the language), I’ve been on a Buddhist pilgrimage and stayed at a monastery (pro-tip: skip the breakfast — weirdest vegetarian food you’ll ever eat). I’ve had a Dude, Where’s My Car? moment where I’ve had to retrace my steps through a major capital city looking for my phone and wallet armed with only a few clues (spoiler: they were at a bar called Tokyo Loose — you couldn’t make this stuff up) and I’ve been to different Disneyland variations seven times.

While my bank account certainly hasn’t thanked me, I think all of these international experiences (including the bad ones) have made me much more equipped to tackle some problems than I would have been tucked safely in Geelong with a world more cash.

Of course, everyone’s experiences are different. I’ve got a couple of friends who have knuckled down in the last few years and will be putting down housing deposits soon — and I couldn’t be prouder of them.