money – Word Hues

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

All through my childhood I have heard this “Money can’t buy happiness”. When it comes to my parents and sister it definitely holds true. We did not have a rich lifestyle. We had no luxury travels or spa vacations. However, I had the most amazing childhood filled with happiness and the most craziest of memories.

As the years have gone by, my parents have gotten older. I have seen how the so called “relations” have changed the way they treat my parents. Till my parents helped them financial they were respected as elders in the house. Now that they are retired and confined to their small lives they cannot afford to spend much on others. I have seen my parents give up on their desires to make others happy. They limited their happiness to that of their family.

Now that I have grown up I want to at least try to give them some of their desires. To achieve that, I need to make money. Where money needs to to be spent it needs to be spent. And sometimes money can buy happiness. I want to take them on an trip maybe a cruise. It may not be something that they want but I want them to experience the “Luxuries” of life. I want them to have food in a fancy restaurant. I may not be able to remove the pain in their life. However, I want to give them some happy memories. They shouldn’t have to worry about the price tag associated with it.

I am not really good with money. Either I spend too much or spend too little.

When I got my first job the pay wasn’t all that great. So, for two year I saved nearly 80% of my salary. Choosing to limit my spending on things for myself. I took only what I need to meet my monthly expenses. I never went out to eat or took trips or for that matter buy things that I really wanted. Every six month from the amount I saved from my expenses I used to splurge on something nice.

My second job really changed things for me. I had a better pay and I also ended up with friends who loved to splurge. I had zero savings and spent a lot on things that I only dreamt of buying at one point.

But experience makes all the difference. I realized that I only spent on things that were part of the short term things that I wanted. A new dress, new stationary, new headphones…. but now I have learnt to stop with the impulse buying.

These are the things that I do to effectively use my pay:

a. Savings/ Investment – I block out a portion of my salary either create deposits or invest in the markets. These are usually auto payments and are charged within the first week of my salary credit. By doing so, I feel I limit myself on the unnecessary expenditure.

b. Utilities – I then segregate amounts that will be part of my monthly expenses such as utilities, groceries, subscriptions, credit bills, etc. These are the expenses that are mostly fixed which cannot be avoided at any cost.

c. Savings for Future Fees – Since I am also still studying I need to allocate a portion of my income so that on the due date of payment I have enough to cover the cost of my fees.

d. Spending – I allocate a certain amount each month for spending on non-essential items. It could be for eating out or buying a new dress. However, once this allocation is over I am done. No more spending in the month.

e. Round up amount – In the end of the month if I do have some savings either divert it towards my course fees or the the investment.

I may be doing something right and most of it wrong but for now I am sticking with this till I figure out a better method. I am still learning.. I see a lot of videos on how to best manage my finances and am trying to change certain aspects of my methods.

Given, that I am a student of finance it does require me to get my own accounts in order before helping others with their finances. So here’s to trying!

Daily writing prompt

Write about your approach to budgeting.

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