On Household Financial Planning

I’m kinda hooked on household financial planning…well, as if I have a choice.  I do keep the purse, consequently,  it’s my task to make the ends meet.  Lucky me, I have a very cooperative husband who’s enthusiastic to earn but too afraid to burn cash.   Would you believe that he can survive with a P1000 weekly allowance?  I offered to increase it but he declined.  Fine.   I’m thankful that we are on the same journey.

To attain  financial freedom, I do the following:

1.        I list down our daily expenses.  I track my spending down to the last centavo.   By doing such, I could easily trace where our hard-earned money went.   It also shows us whether  we are living below our means or not.

2.       I create a monthly budget and I stick to it. 

3.       Before paying Meralco, Sun Cellular, Cityland etc., I pay myself first.  I follow this formula, income-savings=expenses.  Every payday, I allocate  part of our salaries to housing fund, emergency fund and luxury fund.   The housing fund shall be used  for the  interior of the condo unit  I have mentioned in my previous post.   Our target is to save P200k until the actual delivery, that will be on October this year.    As of this writing, we have just raised 25%  of such target amount.   As to our emergency fund, I  think we have  reached 15% of our target.  I am giving us until next year to complete it.  Windfall, please keep on falling.     

4.       Every time I receive a windfall, 80% of it goes to our savings.        

5.       I pay credit card debts.  I try to pay the total amount due for the month to avoid interest charges.      Early this year,  we swiped my BPI and Citibank credit cards in purchasing   AC, dining set and couch.  Our goal: zero credit card debt by September.    

6.       I cook meals.  It’s cheaper to cook than to dine out.  Besides,  I love doing stuff in the kitchen.  According to my boylet, my luto tastes better than those food in Ayala.  He’s referring to Jollyjeep food. Lol.

7.        Boylet and I do the household chores.  We don’t have the funds to  hire an “angel”.

8.       To be financially educated, I read personal finance blogs.  Jill, Fitz, Carlos and Martha are so generous to share their knowledge and experiences.    Try to browse their blogs.  They’re very inspiring. 

9.       I stop buying unnecessary stuff.  Apart from the fact that I cannot afford to splurge, our small unit  can only take in indispensable things.  I even donated some of our stuff (old sofa, old table, old clothes etc).

10.   I limit our AC usage to two hours per day.  This  one is tough considering that it is summer time here in the Philippines.  But it works.  Our electric bill went down  to P1,700+ from P2,700+. Yey!

11.   I got an  insurance policy from  Paramount Life. It’s a life insurance and investment in one.     I have read that term is better than VUL.  I am hesitant to get the former because of the sole immature reason that I find getting a life insurance morbid. So,  I consider my policy as a retirement fund.    

12.   I share.   One can be frugal and generous at the same time.    

      

Creating a secondary income stream is not applicable to me  as of the moment.  I’ll be a busy bee until the last Sunday of October.   I am leaving it to my boylet, the next Carnegie.   The most that I could do is to spend less and save more.      

  

Thank you for reading.