Note: I hope this post would be helpful for young people like me, those who have just started working and plans to retire rich on their early 30s.
When you’re getting older, you get to be conscious with life stuff like money and savings and goals and whatnots. I do, really.
Today, I went reading FrugalPinoy for the first two hours of my morning, then I went watching videos on DistinctionsForLife, scavenging for good advices on personal finance and life fulfillment. Akshully I was just reading YuppieTalks for dose of inspiration when I saw these helpful links on his sidebar.
And I have learned and rediscovered a lot of things - about me, about money and savings, and about making life a little better and nicer. Let me share them to you:
1. Saving is simple. You stash away part of your mooonies to that retirement fund or whatever. Just be clear with your goals on why you are saving and be motivated. Saving, for most people, does not come as easy as I would say it in this blog. But come to think about it, once you get your mind fixed on your goals, who wouldn’t be excited to save? I am pushing my first year as a working gal come mid September, and I just started paying attention with my savings last May 2009. And this I could tell you, since I started doing that saving thing, I am now more excited for every payday because I get to stash part of my hard-earned mooonies into that savings account that I will be using for that goal I have set. Exciting, isn’t it? Really, start from opening a savings account and see your mooonies grow!
2. I am living within my means. I’m sure I am spending less than what I am akshully earning because I get to save mooonies every month - though there are times I dip into my savings once in a while for emergency buys. (Recently, dipping into the savings account has been frequent and it kinda scares the hell out of me. = s ) Also, I don’t have outstanding credits or loans. Rent is paid on time, as well as utility bills. I can move comfortably and be random whenever I want - by being random I mean grabbing stuff from my favorite boutique when there’s sale or putting online orders for the makeup I so wanna die for lol or having a hundred-bucks coffee when I’m stressed or throwing cold cash for salon treatments.
3. We don’t want money, we want the value it can create. This I get from the video You Don’t Really Want Money. Then this realization came to me - yes, we don’t want to collect papers with notes of dead people printed on it, we want the stuff money can offer. But thing is, we can akshully get what we want with the minimal amount there is to use. Take for example my want (that is now a need) to get my nails done every two weeks - before: going to salon for foot spa and manicure and pedicure would cost me around Php400-600, it depends with the salon I go to; now: getting my nails done would cost me an hour and a half of my time. Sweet ayt? = ) That is like Php800-1200 savings in a month! Point is, there are creative ways in which we can get what we want without really sacrificing our budget. Nuff said, I know you get my drift.
4. Monitor your expenses. I keep track of all my expenses - daily expenses - from the smallest thing like buying a keychain up to big stuff like buying my mom a new 8-cubic refrigerator. I keep it on my Belle de Jour planner, so I won’t wonder where my mooonies have gone to. Also, it is a good practice to assess your expenditure. With your expense list, you can easily tell which costs you can cut down, which of them you can akshully go on a day without, so you can focus more on saving more mooonies. As for me, I’ve seen that I have been spending too much on my daily latte, so I decided to cut down on my Starbucks and CBTL visits (save for special occasions that needs coffe celebration teehee). But this doesn’t mean that we deprived ourselves of the good life we want. When I decided to cut down latte buys, I bought a box of my favorite Starbucks Tazo Zen Tea for Php240 (contains 24 tea bags), so whenever I get the cravings for latte, I would settle for tea (iced or hot) instead. I would go to Starbucks, ask the barista to steep my tea, and sometimes pay Php20 for additional caramel syrup for iced tea, and hola I can has (iced) tea for a destresser! And yeah, do the math. = )
5. Define your good life. We want money because we want to create good life for ourselves. I define my good life as having to reach my office without the hassle of long travel time and hellish MRT rides thus the everyday cab fare, strutting down the office corridor with my Charles and Keith heels (I would only buy pairs of heels (or any stuff) from signature shop when its on sale), looking and feeling good about myself, being random as stated above, buying cosmetic products I want and having to have cold cash whenever I need it. For some, good life may be: being up-to-date with the latest gadgets, or being able to travel anywhere, or being able to have weekly surfing getaway, or whatnots. You get that, you spend on stuff you need and you want, that’s obvious. I don’t need fancy cellphones or what, as long as my Nokia2760 can call and text I would be fine, but I can’t go to work by public transpo aside from cab. (Which deserves a separate post, I guess haha)
Hmm, I think that’s it for now. I hope you get something useful. = )
I need to grab more sleep before I prepare for work. And speaking of work, I discovered new ways to be productive. I will be blogging it soon.
See yah around. = )
I just woke up. And I am not supposed to wake up until 12noon later. I will be working on graveyard shift again this week, I just have to be early today because it’s our department’s town hall. Hafta reach teh office 3.30pm because attending town halls like this one is required, and may reflect in our perf ratings for the goodness’ sake.
I forgot to file my shift premiums for this month, yeah that additional bucks we get for working shifts. I know, I know it’s stupid to miss the deadline because that would mean I’m dead poor on September. That’s a no brainer. My savings would suffer again. Also, I forgot to log my work hours. I’m dead with officemate Hanna because she is the one who audits that process, of logging work hours, yes.
I’m having anxieties again. My work week hasn’t started yet I’m already stressed. Just thinking of the stuff I need to finish (or start for the case of other items) makes my head ache bigtime. I need to keep my cool if I want to keep my job for more couple of months (before I move on with whatever/to whereever in life). Also, I don’t know how to maximize my savings anymore. It seems these days money runs out quickly. Amf. I wonder how I could cut down that 200 daily taxi fare to office. A five-thousand monthly transpo expenditure is just not so practical for someone like me whose salary lies on just the average.
I just celebrated my birthday. That one deserves a separate post, and I hope I can do it soon before my memory fails me. The boiffie made a great deal in making me surprises. It was the sweetest deed he have done so far. He got me this pretty Anne Klein wrist watch, took me to a Tagaytay getaway, treated me to a sensous spa in Sonya’s Garden and a lot more I promise to write them all.
Err.. by the way, I haven’t crossed out any items from my shopping list this month. And I guess I will not be crossing them out until October. Amf. This poor life.
