I’m an insurance agent (or financial consultant), and I have problems managing my own finances.

Before I start, I know that I am going to get a lot of grief and hate comments, but I don’t care anymore. I need advice and help before things get out of hand.

I have been an insurance agent for the last 3 years, and my income is relatively healthy. I bring in about $4k to $5k per month, and I also work as a Grab driver in my free time.

But the problem is, I can’t stop spending money. Whatever I earn each month, from my insurance job and investments and side jobs, I spend almost twice of that on redundant things like clothes, drinks, branded things.

I recently started playing this game called Diablo Immortal and spent about $15K on ingame items, and it even got to a point where I borrowed money just to spend somemore.

And I also keep going drinking with my insurance friends and colleagues, and I can’t say no, and sometimes I even borrow money to go drinking with them after exhausting my income for the month.

You know how it is in the insurance line, 8 out of 10 insurance agents are heavy drinkers who go drinking very often. Don’t believe me? Go ask your friends who are insurance agents, they will tell you.

I knew I had a problem but didn’t think it was this bad, until one of my friends told me “you are an insurance agent who works with finances, but you cannot even manage your own, you don’t feel paiseh meh?”

And it really woke me up and I’ve been trying to get back on the straight ever since.

Not happy to admit this but I am about $25k in debt from my loans, credit cards and friends, and have about $10k in savings plus my monthly income of about $4k to $5k.

I am aware of the irony, me being an insurance agent/financial consultant who is terrible with my own finances. But I am working on fixing my mistakes.

So I just want to ask, for those who are spendthrift and addicted to spending money that they don’t have, how do you control your urges to spend money?