What is a Budget Baller?

So what exactly is a Budget Baller or who is a Budget Baller?

I mean, technically, aren’t we all budget ballers?

Granted I’ve only just started this blog but I feel like I’ve been a budget baller since my teenage years. Everyone is always wanting to get the best with what they have and like everything else in life what you have is constantly fluctuating (our income usually is too). I thought I was doing it big, driving down to Florida for two weeks, fresh out of high school with a friend and I guess for the time, age and lack of money I was making, I did pretty well with that. Granted we both ran out of cash and had to have our parents wire us some money to make it back home but that’s just a technicality. 

I made it into my twenties, making a little bit more scratch and started to venture into long weekend trips to different states, any way I could get there and anywhere I could afford. Budget Balling sometimes meant a quick trip down to Florida or a flight to Vegas, shopping in secondhand stores for name brand items or bargain bins. If it was something that I wanted, I always tried to find a way to get it or as close to getting it as I could.

In my thirties, I made much more money but also, bought a house and two weeks after buying that new house, my car of 14 years decided to give up on life and I had to purchase a new vehicle before making my first mortgage payment. There was also my friends’ wedding in Puerto Rico within a month of all of this transpiring so, yeah, I had a lot of new expenses that summer but luckily the trip had been booked well in advance and I bought a very reasonably priced car, that I bargained for hours with the dealership to get the price that I wanted (benefits of driving manual). 

Road trips also became a big thing for me for a while and since I had a nice new, reliable car, my dad and I found ourselves going out of town for state fairs or music concerts and even quite a few basketball games because attempting to see every NBA team in their home arena became a thing for us to bond over for a few years.

But that following year I received my passport.

Luckily, many years before I had decided that traveling was a major priority to me and when I had set up my direct deposit at my job (the one I got fired from) I opened a new checking account, outside of my regular checking accounts and savings, that I added $25 a week to and I called it Budget Baller, with the soul purpose of that account being for vacation. After a couple months, I would have enough for airfare, which I would book and a few months after that, there would be enough to book my hotel or airbnb. As I made more money, I increased the amount that went into this account, so as time went on, I was able to take more lavish vacations. 

So, once I got my passport, there was enough money in my Budget Baller account to pay for plane tickets for my first adventure out of the country. 

Being in my own home, by myself, also made me realize how much money I spent eating out, so meal prep became a big part of my life and I learned how to be very smart with my grocery shopping, which I’ll share my strategy for that as well soon. 

All this to say, being a Budget Baller is “Doing the best with what you got” and curating a baller lifestyle for every tax bracket you fall into. Sometimes that may just be a quick road trip to a state fair or a sporting event for a day, other times just spending a long weekend on the other side of the country and maybe, on occasion, two weeks on the other side of the world. It’s really up to your budget what you can do and sometimes it’s making a few easy sacrifices to get a little bit more from your money, like shopping at a couple thrift stores or having to buy a few packs of ramen, a pork loin and some veggies to have a low budget lunch week. It’s all up to you and what your priorities are and sometimes you may find it fair to sacrifice a few “luxuries” to really get what you want. 

And now, here I am, 8 years in my house, with my 8 year old car and after this weekend, 14 countries under my belt, I’m ready to ready to bring you along with me, as I continue to travel the world and tell you about the fun places I’ve been and trips I’ve taken.