How I Started on My Quest to Be Financially Free

It was my Ate who taught me to be organized. When we spent summers at her bunkhouse in Batangas she'd leave us a lot of things to do. She was big on making lists and that somehow rubbed off me. She's a chemical engineer and that meant she's very process oriented too. I remember peering in her notebook when she was still studying and it was full of process flow charts. 

I learned the adulthood ropes by myself. Ate and Kuya had their own families already before I became a teenager. I was in my late 20s when I read a quote that said something like "You're an adult if you pay your bills on time". I was still living with my parents, but I had monthly bills and Miggy bills. I also learned from a friend to always pay your credit card in full every month. 

Eventually I had to manage two households, my home in Manila and Singapore. That meant two sets of monthly bills. To stay on top of it I created a spreadsheet to track the bills. It's already a template that I copy monthly. This makes sure I pay all the bills. It also helps me stay on budget. Early this year I made a review of my basic monthly and annual expenses and that's how I developed my target to be financially free. 

Here's how I broke down my future expenses:

Ideally you should already be free from mortgages and any bank financing payments by the time you become financially free. After computing my basic expenses I now have an idea how much monthly passive income I should develop. As my favorite finance vloggers always say, develop a diversified portfolio. I've been working on it little by little for some time now.

I've had to adjust my initial target to cover health expenses. When I first started working on this quest I didn't have any maintenance meds. My doctor told me this morning she's appreciative that I have very good understanding of my condition. I told her it's important for me to know because I need to think about my future. 

Hope this post was helpful for you to start thinking about your future. It will probably take me time to write about investments since I'm still studying it for now. 

CB///349 #StuckAtHomeDay/Yr2/12 #StayHome #BeKind