What is the bare minimum I need to know to avoid ruining my life?

it's typical in human psychology when something seems a little bit intimidating or if something might give you answers that you don't like to kind of ignore that and and to pretend like it's not there and money is one of those things that I think some people like well if I really were to look at the money at my Sciences one it might be a little intimidating but also it might give me an answer that I don't like it might say that actually I can't afford that fancy sports car or I can't afford that fancy dress or that fancy suit and I don't like that answer I want to be able to buy that thing I want to be able to go to the fancy restaurants with my friend and so I'm just going to kind of ignore it don't do that that is setting yourself up for disaster it's you know the short term yeah you might enjoy that nice meal that nice vacation the fancy car but in the long term if you're not thinking about your finances you're going to have nights where you're staying up all night it's going to cause you stress it's going to it's going to make it hard for you to engage with your family your friends with with with work and and and so you know a short-term gain for a long-term pain is not a good trade-off so I would encourage you you don't have to get a PhD in finance or have to do you know super complicated spreadsheets or anything like that but just do basic back of the envelope calculations how much after-tax income are you bringing in every month and look at the after-tax income so look at your pay stub how much is coming in every month and then what are your expenditures how much you spend in rent how much does if you have a car how much you spending on that how much you're spending on insurance how much are you spending on groceries how much you spending on eating out how much are you spending on clothes on vacations on other things and just have a general sense of this and one write down what you think you're spending on these things but then go into your bank account you know you have online banking now you can see what you actually spent on these things and I think you might get surprised that hey I thought I was only spending $100 a month on eating out oh wow I'm spending three hundred fifty dollars a month on eating out that's a lot more than I thought so do all of that make sure that at minimum you're living in a sustainable way that you could you can afford your rent your your the way you're living your car payment your insurance and all that but ideally and this is something that I tell to everyone who listen I tell myself I tell my children and live below your means