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16th March 2018
01:13pm GMT
Listen up kids, this one's for you. All those bills you've racked up ordering Instagrammable cocktails and eating in places with pretty backgrounds? Be careful, or you too could end up in debt.
Lissette Calveiro is a lifestyle blogger from Miami, who moved to New York to work for a PR firm and soon found herself under pressure to document her high flying life on Instagram.
Speaking to UNILAD, she revealed that she ended up $10,000 in debt after spending too much money on things she couldn't afford to keep up her lifestyle.
"Trying to emulate social media personalities at the budget of a young professional fresh out of college, it’s entirely unrealistic.
"I was swiping credit cards at every turn thinking ‘I’m sure I’ll pay this off later.’ While true, it’s a very dangerous slope and can cause many people to get into a sticky financial situation. Also – because I was always more focused on my career OFFLINE (profile).
"I didn’t have the time to build an influencer business like many others have to make money from it or do experiences for free. It simply wasn’t my priority to grow my audience and just kept “posting photos” for whoever did want to listen."
Over the space of three years, she estimated a debt of "around $10,000 — though this was ‘$1-3K USD’ spread around various cards, never one $10,000 bill (that would be even scarier!) Thankfully am not.
The first step was growing my career to where I was making much more money in order to pay back debt, living UNDER my means. For example: moved to NY to live far from work, with a room mate, to have really cheap rent, cooking at home, and starting a savings at the same time."
YIKES.
Lisette added that "living above your means is never as enjoyable as spending on things you can actually afford.
I find lots of joy in doing things I love – like travel – but being able to pay for it upfront and not on a credit card."
Y'know what's cool? Homemade lunches right... Right?!
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