Ideas to Save Money from Your Income

Previously we have mention that saving is a must before investment because the money which has been used in investment shall not be disturbed in long term. The money in the saving named as Emergency Reserve shall be used only during emergency case and should cover your daily expenses for 3 months.

Function of Emergency Reserve

Let say Andrew is very concern on the investment as it’s highly return. He use most of his salary to do investment but didn’t plan to have a saving as the interest from the bank is low. One day, he meets an incident that requires $10k immediately, but he found out that he doesn’t have a saving which reserve for emergency use. He plan to sold the shares, but realized that the funds obtained will be less than the capital that he put in the investment after deducting the broker commission fees and actual share price. This making him losing money as investment only returns money in long term. From this case, we should realize the important of Emergency Reserve.

How to Save Money from Income?

From now on, we should record every daily expense at end of each day. This is important as we will know where our money are heading from pocket. You can create a spreadsheet to record every expense at the end of the day. You can make a comparison to view which category that you expense a lot. 

After deducting your fixed expenses from income, the remaining will be your “available budget” for your daily expense. Based on this available budget, you must reserve part of it as your saving first, let say 15%, while the other 85% will be served for your individual use. You may refer to pie chart as below. In other terms, you will act as financial minister that monitor how your budget is being allocated, since this is your money. The lesser you spend, the balance can be shifted to the “saving fractions” at end of the month. The 10% for entertainment is required as you need this money to release your stress. If you didn’t consider this 10% entertainment budget, you will lose control due to stress and eventually consume a lot from your hardly save money just to enjoy and release your stress.

Nowadays, there is lot of apps that can be downloaded to your phones, and I also using one of them. The apps can record the daily expenses and also set the budget that you have allocated in each category, so that you wouldn't exceed the budget.

Hopefully this article can give you some ideas on how to save more money and to control the way your money being used.

How to Save Your Hard Earned Money Before Investment

Before you start your investment journey, you must have saving first.

How much you save from your income at each month? Do you face difficult on daily expenses at the end of the month? At the beginning of the month, you enjoy your life by consuming your salary without suitable limits and turn into difficulty situation where you found out that there was nothing left in your savings to “survive” on the remaining days at end of the month. In other terms we call as live from paycheck to paycheck.

This situation can be solved if you have properly planned your income before consuming it. Before you pay your salary to others, you should save part of your salary first as your fixed saving. This fixed savings can’t be used as it served as emergency funds that only to be used when you lose your income in certain period. You can save for 3 months or 6 months depend on your age. If you still young and healthy, you can save for 3 months as the chance to get another new job will be high. But if you are in elder age, you should save for 6 months as the chance to get new job will be difficult compared to young adult.

Your saving should cover all your fixed expenses and daily life. The fixed expenses here mean the expenses that you must pay to others such as the house loan, rental fees, car loan and insurance. While daily life expenses shall include the items that support your basic life, such as food, etc. It should not include your luxury items which can’t provide extra income and place your financial burden.

After you pay part of your salary after tax to fixed expenses, the remaining income shall be used to support your daily life basics. Before you consume the remaining income, you must save a fixed amount from them first, then after that can be consumed for your personal use.

How much you should save per month? We will look into another article soon.

Remember! Before invest, you must have sufficient savings that cover your daily life.

Essential of Investment

Why We Need Invest?

The reasons are very simple and clear. We need to create WEALTH and to achieve FINANCIAL INDEPENDENT in future. Besides, investment can beat the inflation in long term. We create our wealth to achieve financial independent through earning the dividends as the Passive Income.

Let’s think in the future, when your age become old and you need to take care of your parents and your family, how you get extra income to cover your parent’s expenses? Do you plan your children’s education expenses in future? Do you want to achieve your retirement in earlier time and enjoy your life without worry? Would you worried that you lose your jobs due to sickness or unforeseen events that cause you unable to work that affect your income? If you think about these things in your life, then you will be aware the importance of passive income! You can use the passive income as extra income for the above expenses.

Investment can also beat the INFLATION in our daily life! Do you ever think about what is inflation? Well, inflation is a condition that decreases you money “value” in long term without your notice. Let’s look at example. In current time, a movie ticket will cost you $10, but it may cost you $20 in the next 10 years. The buying power of your money decrease in long term!

What is your major source of income? Is it your salary only? You should know that salary as your only income is not secured in your daily life. Salary as your only income will not making you become rich, but is your savings and investment. The combination of these two will make you financial independent if your major income is from salary only.

How much we need to keep in saving account? Based on my opinion, your savings should cover all your fixed and daily life expenses from 3 to 6 months, depend on how conservative person you are, in case you lose your major income or you need money in urgent. So this will not disturb the money which you have put in the investment. By keeping your money in saving account instead of investing it, your money wouldn’t work for you to get extra money in long term. Through investment, your money work for you by earning interest and hence your money will increase in long term! Bank interest is low compared to the investment.

Hence, the earlier you invest, the earlier you make money to achieve financial independent.