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It was February of this year when I planned to have our very own money challenge. I decided on doing the envelope system. It worked for just a few weeks then I am back on my spending habits again. Arggh! So hard! The difficult part on it was not having enough coins or exact cash from the atm upon withdrawal to put on the envelopes. Then, my partner can't do the tin cans anymore because we are ending up on spending those once we are out of cash. This is really hard.
On the positive side, I was able to be on track on depositing every payday on the twins' BDO Junior Savers Account. It is more working if I am saving little amount per payday.
I am frustrated with myself. This year I will be on the big 3-0 and there is no cents on my savings account. I am living paycheck to paycheck. Now here's another game-plan for me, publishing it to the whole wide world so I can slap my face if I fail again! Ha Ha Ha.
I found this very helpful article from Zen Habits. First thing was to track my spending. I started to track my spending last May 15, 2015, half of my salary goes to all the necessities (Bills, groceries, food, for the twins etc.). And I soon discovered that there is a lot of eat outs for just 2 weeks. Hu Hu Hu. I can't help it. The eat outs are larger than my allowance for two weeks. So this is where I am going to cut off for the next two weeks. This is a challenge, really. But I really need to do it.
Make a budget. I made an excel list on all our budgets and we really need to stick to it.
I've read before that you need to pay yourself first before anything else. So if I am going to cut my eat outs, I will put that on my bank account and think that I don't have money on it so I will not able to spend it. I hope it will work. I got an idea from Savings Pinay regarding the BPI Direct Save-Up Automatic Savings + Insurance. It let's you automatically save an amount of your salary deposited in your ATM or Express Teller Account and let it earn an insurance for you. I hope I can open one for emergency fund alone.
I will still continue to do this list on my previous blog post for money saving tips. I also read this article on ways to save money.
Cut down on bills. I have a postpaid and a cable that both have a contract. As soon as the contract ends this year, I will not renew it anymore. In relation to that is also cutting on electricity usage.
And lastly, this is the most important of all, start thinking for the goals on why I save. At the end of the year, I should have at-least a month of my salary and will start to have funds for the following:
- Twins' college funds
- House renovation
- Mortgage payments
- Emergency funds
- Medical purposes
- Insurance payments
Then, there's new changes at work. There is a big possibility of transferring our office to BGC. Imagine, me commuting from Antipolo to BGC? Oh the horror! I was really comfortable in commuting to Eastwood. And I love Eastwood! And right now I still don't want to change work. If I have enough savings or maybe 3 months of my salary I can resign for the meantime and because I don't have anything not even a cent. I should have a savings first before trying to change or look for another job.
As I mentioned before, this will not happen overtime. It will take time and the first step is really the most difficult part. I really need to discipline myself. As I write this down, I know that I am not depriving myself but creating the financial freedom on how to stop living paycheck to paycheck.
In case you miss it, I have my 1st anniversary giveaway here. :)
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