I'm a college student who sucked at money. Here's what actually helped.

I grew up not really understanding finances. My parents didn't talk really about it -- it feels like talking about money is almost taboo. And I made dumb mistakes early on; overspending on food and shopping and not tracking anything ending up broke by week 2 of the month.

I'm still learning up until this moment that I am writing this... but here are 3 things that actually moved the needle for me:

1. TRACKING - I started tracking every single peso for one month
   I can't say that I ws budgeting. But essentially, I was tracking the flow of my money. I used the Apple Notes app then upgraded to better finance tracking apps. It was painful to see where my money went (₱200 here, ₱300 there). But it revealed to me thaat I was actually recklessly spending ₱2,500/month on snacks and matcha.

2. ALLOCATING - I separated my allowance into mental envelopes
   I literally have 3 envelopes (digital now): Food, Transpo/School, and Savings.... when the food money runs out, I don't touch the others; which forced me actually to learn to say no to myself for spending

3. CONTROLLING - I stopped trying to "invest" agad
   Everyone talks about stocks and crypto. But I realized I don't have enough to invest yet. What I needed was just an emergency fund even ₱1,000, so I don't panic when something comes up. That gave me more peace than any investment would.

I'm not perfect and so is my financial life. I still slip up sometimes here and there. But tracking and separating my money changed how I think about it.

What about you? What's the one money habit that saved you as a student (or early in your career)?