How Managing My Money Better Made Me Happier

When my Kuya gave me advise on how to manage my money better I realized I wasn't enjoying my hard earned money. Whenever making a purchase I would debate with myself if it was a need. It prevented me from growing and being happy. 

I was that way because I was fearful about saddling my family with medical expenses. I was leading my life in fear and that was wrong. It showed I had very little faith. It also showed that I wasn't truly living. I just followed a routine and it was a huge disservice to my family. We could've made more happy memories.

Managing your money better helped in my healing journey. Changing how I budgeted helped me grow and be happier. I find reasons to celebrate and reward this with good food. My quilting skills have improved because I invested in learning new things. I worried less because I worked on my investments. I've been able to focus on recovering. Here's the breakdown my Kuya gave me - 

I'm now transitioning to a new phase in my life. With faith and a lot of prayer I hope I've made the right decisions to be financially free. It's also a good thing that I stuck to the same spending habits I had when I had before moving to SG. I missed out on a lot of experiences, but at least I won't have a hard time adjusting again to life back home. 

CB///*Yr2/156 #StuckAtHomeDay/Yr2/179 #NewG291 #Home49 #Xmas102 #StayHome #BeKind 

Steps I've Taken to Be Financially Free

Two months ago I wrote about my Kuya's challenge for me to be financially free before I turn 50. I started by understanding my monthly and annual expenses. One key advise of financial advisers is to understand what you're getting into. I read articles and watched a lot of videos. I also attended the Truly Rich Club workshop on understanding the stock market.

There are so many financial products out in the market. My Mom was a banker so her expertise was more on growing your money through savings. So I broke down my research into three: (1) financial products I could do through a bank; (2) investments (stocks); and (3) real estate. 

To be honest for many years I let my Mom manage my money. I would just deposit my savings and she'd take care of moving it to a time deposit. I decided to take over my accounts when I took a break so Mom didn't have to stress about it. After assessing my savings situation I inquired from the bank how I could earn more interest from my savings. 

Regular and time deposit savings don't really earn much interest. In fact, I learned if you leave your money just on savings you'll eventually lose money. The first thing the bank asked me was my appetite for risk and how long I could keep the money. Here's a list of options they gave me:

• Insurance
• Unit investment trust funds
• Bonds
• Treasury bills

I wanted something which could provide me cash every month so getting more insurance wasn't the best option for me. Bit wary about the current state of affairs back home so I'm still assessing whether bonds and treasury bills will be a good investment. So far the UITF is the best option for me. 

I learned a bit about stocks when I was taking my MBA. I just needed more guidance about what to invest on. I signed up for the Truly Rich Club a few years ago and finally attended a workshop on the stock market. It gave me a better understanding on what I'm getting into, plus they give advise on where to invest every few weeks. 

I started investing last March and I'm happy to share that one of my investments gave a dividend already (like PhP100+ only haha). It was small, but encouraging. The important thing about investing in the stock market is to assess your appetite for risk. It's also better if you do it for long term investing. TRC is hosting another stock market workshop on June 19. If you want to sign up as a member, here's my affiliate link and here's my 10% off coupon code - TRC101727AFF- if you just want to join the seminar.

I'm hoping that the interest from bank investment can provide my monthly needs. I'm so far just a third covered for my projected monthly expenses. Will be working on this quest more. I'll write more about real estate on another post since there's a lot of stuff about that I'm still studying right now. 

Hope this helps you as you work towards financial freedom!

PS Just also wanted to say I'm so grateful I have a Kuya who's been providing me guidance. I thought it would be great to share the stuff I learned from him (like the quest to be financially free). 

CB///*Yr2/54  #StuckAtHomeDay/Yr2/81 #StayHome #BeKind

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 

The Quest for Financial Freedom

Many years ago Kuya gave me a challenge. He said I should be financially free by age of 50. And everytime we meet up for Japanese buffet he'd check on my progress. To be honest I only started thinking about it seriously two years ago. 

I'll tell you a secret, I did not like my finance classes. I seem to have done well though because I was offered to teach finance after graduation! I turned it down because it wasn't my cup of tea. That inspired me though to do better during grad school. I tried my best to understand what my professors taught. All I remember now is I had good marks when we were tasked to create a stock portfolio. 

That was the last time I really thought about managing money. Kuya kept reminding me though. The last time we had Japanese buffet he taught me how to properly manage my monthly salary. Here's the breakdown:

The breakdown totally changed how I budget my money. I had been on paranoid saving mode since I had heart surgery in 2013. That meant I was saving over enjoying and rewarding myself. It was a great guide for me to get me going to meet my financial freedom deadline.  

So as much as finance/investments isn't my cup of tea, I swallowed the bitter pill and started working on my future. I started with computing how much monthly expenses I have if I lived in Manila. After that I started assessing what I can invest on. They did teach most of it in grad school. There's stocks, mutual funds, real estate, UITFs, dividen pay funds, bonds and many others. 

The options are dizzying, but the first thing you need to determine is what kind of risk you are willing to take. From how I've been behaving I'm a low risk person. So I've been studying. I've been binge watching vlogs of Chinkee Tan, the Truly Rich Club, Fitz' Ready to Be Rich, Marvin Germo and many others. They all have one common advise, "Know and understand what you are getting into". Aside from watching videos I also do a lot of reading. 

I think I may meet the deadline earlier hrhrhr. 

P.S. Was this post useful for you? Comment down below if you want me to share more about how I'm working towards financial freedom. 

CB///348 #StuckAtHomeDay/Yr2/11 #StayHome #BeKind