For a new Mom like me, budgeting can be a real challenge. I am working in a BPO industry although my salary wasn't huge like those who are working on a graveyard schedules. I basically chose an afternoon schedule since mother heart needs to cuddle with my baby at night. Having that said, I don't enjoy the full night shift of 20% that could add up to my take home pay.
It was odd that money management isn't part of our school program. That's maybe one of the reason most people doesn't follow a budget for themselves or for their household. As I aged, I realize the importance of creating a budget and the most challenging part? Sticking to it.
When June came, I started a new goal regarding our finances. I have created a goal that's mainly good up to 2020. Although the coming year's goal isn't as planned as what I have in the remaining months of the year, at least, I have started. So why planning where your money will go is very important? Here are the things that I have learned last month.
Savings
I am sure you are aware of the formula Income - Savings = Expenses? This is mainly how I now budget our money. As you might already know, we are a one income household at this stage so money only comes from one source alone. For sure if you don't have a budget, you wouldn't know how much you need to save to achieve your other financial goals and end up not having any savings at all. You might ask, paano ko pa naba budget ang money with savings given all the expenses? We are being paid every 2 weeks which makes planning easier. Before I pay all the bills I make sure that the very first thing on my list will be our savings. I know I have mentioned it before that I am putting at least P500 on Jami's passbook to keep it going and later on decided that the money placed into it will be our emergency fund. Yes, that's another essential that I have learned as well and that deserves another post. At this stage, I allot 20% of my salary to our savings. Given that it is at the top of my list, whatever that is left, yun na lang ang pinagkakasya. We have also decided that whenever there's an extra money (from relatives, commission etc), 20% will go to our savings regardless how big or small it was. I even created a budget for the remaining months of 2016 and that made me figure out kung kailan ako magtitipid at kung kailan ako may extra money to add into savings or maybe for shopping or eat out.
Consumer Loans
From time to time, I am sure you would borrow money from friends, relatives, officemates just to buy certain things. Or maybe in my case, my officemates are very much into business, almost everyone is coming up into selling something tapos babayaran na lang on our next payout. Oh! That could be really tempting, ang makakain ng masarap na Leche Flan without paying for it, get hold of products from Direct Selling companies because mainly, pinapautang and you could get the product without even paying for it upfront. That's the same with credit card, you charge it to your card and get away with the product in a snap. You later on realize when the next payout comes, almost 25% or more of your salary goes to paying your consumer loans. Yes, I fell in this trap too, multiple times. But then, it's never too late to go back up. At the moment, paying those loans are part of my budget too.
Paying Bills
Not having a budget may lead you to pay your electricity or water bills late. Since you don't know the due dates of your bills, you might feel that you have this amount of money to spend where in fact, you forgot to pay a bill. You'll figure it out after you spent the money on something that's not important. The result of not budgeting our money lead me into being behind my apartment rent. Since I was able to budget our money in the remaining months, I was able to figure out now that there will be no eat out or entertainment of that sort until next week so we'll be updated with the bills.
Groceries, Food and Work Allowance
Budgeting our money also gave me an opportunity to look into the food that we'll eat until the next payout. I didn't realize that having too much of consumer loan lessens the amount that goes to our groceries since I have to make adjustments to surely pay those borrowed money. Now that I have a good budget plan, I am also able to plan the food section and the things that should go in the cart while doing grocery shopping. Having that said, I am also able to bring food for lunch at work which saved me a lot. I won't need to allot more money to work allowance because my food will be coming from our groceries. I am trying my best to be able to cook food for our lunch so I could bring some too. Talk about hitting two birds in one stone. =)
Entertainment and Unplanned Expenses
The very last on our budget is our entertainment budget. This comes with dining out, movies, travel etc. Since we are behind of our bills at this point and consumer loans were left and right, we cut the entertainment section to zero. Although this doesn't mean that we completely deprived ourselves of eating out, there were times when Daryl would have some spare money so we'll use that to our advantage. We tried our very best to limit the dining out at this time to make sure that we are sticking to our budget. I also allot an amount named "Unexpected Expenses" just so my budget won't be ruined in case something that isn't included in the budget comes up (Gas, (which is usually shouldered by Daryl's Mom), new toys and unexpected cravings of Jami). As much as possible, we are avoiding malls to make sure that we will not get tempted to buy stuff that's not necessary at this point.
We were still lucky that we get little help from some of our relatives although I wished that one day, we will opt not to. Budgeting really taught us a lot including our goals in the next 5 years of our life. Planning could really be fun but sticking to it is your real challenge. I had my budget created at the start of last month and following it was really painful. But as the days go by, I was able to contain the overwhelming emotions and looked positively on my goals.
It was odd that money management isn't part of our school program. That's maybe one of the reason most people doesn't follow a budget for themselves or for their household. As I aged, I realize the importance of creating a budget and the most challenging part? Sticking to it.
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| photo source |
When June came, I started a new goal regarding our finances. I have created a goal that's mainly good up to 2020. Although the coming year's goal isn't as planned as what I have in the remaining months of the year, at least, I have started. So why planning where your money will go is very important? Here are the things that I have learned last month.
Savings
I am sure you are aware of the formula Income - Savings = Expenses? This is mainly how I now budget our money. As you might already know, we are a one income household at this stage so money only comes from one source alone. For sure if you don't have a budget, you wouldn't know how much you need to save to achieve your other financial goals and end up not having any savings at all. You might ask, paano ko pa naba budget ang money with savings given all the expenses? We are being paid every 2 weeks which makes planning easier. Before I pay all the bills I make sure that the very first thing on my list will be our savings. I know I have mentioned it before that I am putting at least P500 on Jami's passbook to keep it going and later on decided that the money placed into it will be our emergency fund. Yes, that's another essential that I have learned as well and that deserves another post. At this stage, I allot 20% of my salary to our savings. Given that it is at the top of my list, whatever that is left, yun na lang ang pinagkakasya. We have also decided that whenever there's an extra money (from relatives, commission etc), 20% will go to our savings regardless how big or small it was. I even created a budget for the remaining months of 2016 and that made me figure out kung kailan ako magtitipid at kung kailan ako may extra money to add into savings or maybe for shopping or eat out.
Consumer Loans
From time to time, I am sure you would borrow money from friends, relatives, officemates just to buy certain things. Or maybe in my case, my officemates are very much into business, almost everyone is coming up into selling something tapos babayaran na lang on our next payout. Oh! That could be really tempting, ang makakain ng masarap na Leche Flan without paying for it, get hold of products from Direct Selling companies because mainly, pinapautang and you could get the product without even paying for it upfront. That's the same with credit card, you charge it to your card and get away with the product in a snap. You later on realize when the next payout comes, almost 25% or more of your salary goes to paying your consumer loans. Yes, I fell in this trap too, multiple times. But then, it's never too late to go back up. At the moment, paying those loans are part of my budget too.
Paying Bills
Not having a budget may lead you to pay your electricity or water bills late. Since you don't know the due dates of your bills, you might feel that you have this amount of money to spend where in fact, you forgot to pay a bill. You'll figure it out after you spent the money on something that's not important. The result of not budgeting our money lead me into being behind my apartment rent. Since I was able to budget our money in the remaining months, I was able to figure out now that there will be no eat out or entertainment of that sort until next week so we'll be updated with the bills.
Groceries, Food and Work Allowance
Budgeting our money also gave me an opportunity to look into the food that we'll eat until the next payout. I didn't realize that having too much of consumer loan lessens the amount that goes to our groceries since I have to make adjustments to surely pay those borrowed money. Now that I have a good budget plan, I am also able to plan the food section and the things that should go in the cart while doing grocery shopping. Having that said, I am also able to bring food for lunch at work which saved me a lot. I won't need to allot more money to work allowance because my food will be coming from our groceries. I am trying my best to be able to cook food for our lunch so I could bring some too. Talk about hitting two birds in one stone. =)
Entertainment and Unplanned Expenses
The very last on our budget is our entertainment budget. This comes with dining out, movies, travel etc. Since we are behind of our bills at this point and consumer loans were left and right, we cut the entertainment section to zero. Although this doesn't mean that we completely deprived ourselves of eating out, there were times when Daryl would have some spare money so we'll use that to our advantage. We tried our very best to limit the dining out at this time to make sure that we are sticking to our budget. I also allot an amount named "Unexpected Expenses" just so my budget won't be ruined in case something that isn't included in the budget comes up (Gas, (which is usually shouldered by Daryl's Mom), new toys and unexpected cravings of Jami). As much as possible, we are avoiding malls to make sure that we will not get tempted to buy stuff that's not necessary at this point.
We were still lucky that we get little help from some of our relatives although I wished that one day, we will opt not to. Budgeting really taught us a lot including our goals in the next 5 years of our life. Planning could really be fun but sticking to it is your real challenge. I had my budget created at the start of last month and following it was really painful. But as the days go by, I was able to contain the overwhelming emotions and looked positively on my goals.
