The Price for Financial Freedom: Priceless!
Money is liquid asset. It doesn't matter how much one has, it can be exhausted faster than it can be earned, ten-fold.
I should know, I once went from a high paying job to getting a net salary of less than 2k (bad case of giving too much to your family, shortly after my Father died). I can be very frugal, to a point of being shrewd. But I think that I've achieved that state where my frugality doesn't affect my spending behavior. It that was last year when I hit that point. Thinking back, the main driving principles I had were these, in the order of importance:
Be organized with your finances. I always keep a notebook where I do my accounting and calculation of my bills versus my net salary. I use a steno notebook because it's lightweight and thin. It's part of my daily inventory, so that whenever I have free time, say I'm waiting for a friend in a coffeeshop, I can just take it out and do the numbers. PDAs and other electronics don't cut it, I think, the handwritten word is still the best.
Pay yourself first. I got myself to doodle this all over my budget notebooks. This is the rule I live by with my finances, and has made me close most of my plastic money last year, and all the remaining ones are zero-balanced to date. This means that before anything else, prioritize first and foremost the payment of your liabilities. That also means that you give a big chunk to pay creditors, before dividing the rest. For me, that meant giving up my bonuses to pay off my credit cards at that time.
Put the "Pay yourself first" principle in mind when buying. Do you know that the Philippine Government, by virtue of law, uses 50% of the yearly Budget to pay our international debt? If you don't want to pay big, don't buy big, enough said.
Avoid impulse buying. This is the rule I break most of the time, but the previous rule is my failsafe. Practice this: when you see something you want, let a day pass before you come back to buy the item.
If you have to shop, schedule it every quarter. I do a one-time shopping-spree every quarter of the year (approximately everytime the new line comes out, can you say BIG SALE!). If it has to be status shopping, meaning you want people to oohh and aahh at your affluent ways, better it be once every 90 days. They won't notice that it was three months ago since you were sosi. You will be permanently tagged as such. :-)
The idea is to be a sensible consumer. What does everyone know about dieting? Starving yourself is not the way. Now if I can only apply this to my eating, hmmm...
I should know, I once went from a high paying job to getting a net salary of less than 2k (bad case of giving too much to your family, shortly after my Father died). I can be very frugal, to a point of being shrewd. But I think that I've achieved that state where my frugality doesn't affect my spending behavior. It that was last year when I hit that point. Thinking back, the main driving principles I had were these, in the order of importance:
Be organized with your finances. I always keep a notebook where I do my accounting and calculation of my bills versus my net salary. I use a steno notebook because it's lightweight and thin. It's part of my daily inventory, so that whenever I have free time, say I'm waiting for a friend in a coffeeshop, I can just take it out and do the numbers. PDAs and other electronics don't cut it, I think, the handwritten word is still the best.
Pay yourself first. I got myself to doodle this all over my budget notebooks. This is the rule I live by with my finances, and has made me close most of my plastic money last year, and all the remaining ones are zero-balanced to date. This means that before anything else, prioritize first and foremost the payment of your liabilities. That also means that you give a big chunk to pay creditors, before dividing the rest. For me, that meant giving up my bonuses to pay off my credit cards at that time.
Put the "Pay yourself first" principle in mind when buying. Do you know that the Philippine Government, by virtue of law, uses 50% of the yearly Budget to pay our international debt? If you don't want to pay big, don't buy big, enough said.
Avoid impulse buying. This is the rule I break most of the time, but the previous rule is my failsafe. Practice this: when you see something you want, let a day pass before you come back to buy the item.
If you have to shop, schedule it every quarter. I do a one-time shopping-spree every quarter of the year (approximately everytime the new line comes out, can you say BIG SALE!). If it has to be status shopping, meaning you want people to oohh and aahh at your affluent ways, better it be once every 90 days. They won't notice that it was three months ago since you were sosi. You will be permanently tagged as such. :-)
The idea is to be a sensible consumer. What does everyone know about dieting? Starving yourself is not the way. Now if I can only apply this to my eating, hmmm...
posted by JA | 7:28 AM
3 Comments:
Read the book by Robert Kiyosaki: "Rich Dad Poor Dad"
What does everyone know about dieting? Starving yourself is not the way. Now if I can only apply this to my eating, hmmm...
LOLZ!!!! you can say that ... pareho lang tayo kuya! LOLZ!
Someone once said that when you come to a point where you don't need a book, a quote, or someone else's words to get it, thats where you really "get it". In this area in my life, I'd like to think that I really "got it".
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