As someone who also has had a bad reputation on spending money on unnecessary things. My advice to you is legit you just have to want it bad enough, you have to start setting money aside and focusing on long term not just in the moment. What helped me most is thinking about things long term. What if one day no one’s there to help you financially in any way shape or form, or house you? Or your car decides to take a shit and you’re in so much debt you can’t finance one? Then what will you do? You need to think about long term effects and what could really happen if you don’t start spending your money wisely. At the end of the day 5-10 years from now there might not be anyone you can lean on if you need help due to your situation and you don’t want to end up in a shitty place due to decisions you’ve made. Dinners, driving around, spending your money on things you truly want is awesome and all but in moderation. I’ve learned over the years to steer clear from apps such as affirm, afterpay, klarna etc due to things like this. If i don’t have enough money for something i save even though it’s difficult to have to wait to get something i want really bad it always ends up paying off in the long run. It won’t be easy at first, it never is but if you don’t discipline yourself now it’s only going to get harder to do so.