Amanda, nicknamed the Trash Can: saved a lot of money and went traveling
A young American woman saved about 30 thousand dollars by eating scraps. A professional financier, Amanda Holden did not disdain to finish the leftovers for her colleagues and even rummage in dumpsters in search of food. The woman spent the amount collected in 8 months of savings on a whole year of traveling in South America, after which she returned to the States and began a new career as a life coach.
Quit your job and start a new life? Why not! But first it would be nice to save some money. That's exactly the decision Amanda Holden, a 32-year-old financier from Portland, Oregon, made for herself.
If earlier Amanda went to work as an ordinary office employee and spent a lot of money on daily lunches, then one day she decided to eat leftovers, which were left in abundance after lunch by her office colleagues and employees in neighboring buildings.
Amanda earned the nickname Trash Can after colleagues noticed her eating a half-eaten burrito from the trash. But such a nickname did not bother the woman at all.
Amanda used to spend a lot of money, including on parties. Sometimes she hung out every day. But at the age of 27, Amanda realized that she had no savings and clearly needed to change jobs: a career in finance did not make her happy. In search of life changes, Amanda decided to save money. She set herself a goal — to collect 20 thousand dollars in 6 months.
"I worked in an office with a lot of people, so there was almost always extra food. I openly told my colleagues about my idea, and many people supported me. I ate up what the employees left. If someone ate half of the pizza, I asked them not to throw away the leftovers, but to give them to me. However, there were times when I didn't find any leftovers and I still had to buy food. But these were exceptions."
Saving on food has led to a change in the whole lifestyle. Amanda admits that she has never been a big fan of shopping, although for her as a woman at first it was very difficult to do without cosmetics and perfumes. The next saving item was the refusal to spend on entertainment, although this was also given to Amanda not without problems, because she always considered herself a very sociable person. After the abandonment of entertainment, spending cuts on beauty salons and a gym followed. And, oddly enough, she saved a decent amount by stopping buying expensive coffee in coffee shops.
As a result, in 8 months Amanda managed to save 30 thousand dollars (more than 1 million 700 thousand rubles). When the woman wrote a letter of resignation of her own volition, her boss looked at her and asked if that's why they call her a Trash Can because she eats out of the trash? "The boss said he saw me with his own eyes pulling a half-eaten burrito out of the trash. However, then we just laughed about it," recalls Amanda.
Amanda left her job in finance, flew to Mexico, and then traveled around Latin America for a whole year with the money she saved.
Today, Amanda Holden runs her blog and teaches how to live economically, but at the same time stay happy. Its goal is to make people more thrifty. But at the same time, it is not at all necessary, like her, to start with climbing over garbage cans, the woman admits, chuckling.