Raffy's How To Win In Life

Oh, Guys! Napanuod niyo na bang lahat ang tatlong webisodes ko? If yes, you must be wondering how I was able to achieve all of that in 10 years. :) Here is the excel sheet that I used to manage my savings and expenses. It also served as my timeline of goals (Yes! Goals of what I want to achieve in life!) sabi nga ng tropa kong si Antoine de Saint-Exupery - "A goal without a plan is just a wish."

So, stop wishing and start to !

Google Sheets - create and edit spreadsheets online, for free. Create a new spreadsheet and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Sheets to edit Excel files. Free from Google.

How to Manage Savings and Expenses

After finding a reputable company and securing tenure, the next battle working professional face is how to manage savings and expenses. Some tend to exhaust all their earnings once they receive their pay check which makes them one day millionaire and struggle all throughout the remaining weeks waiting for the next one.

It is also evident that not everyone has a good amount of savings, and much more of an emergency fund. It is important to have both because we don’t know what life may hit us. Rule of thumb is if you have 3 month worth of salary as emergency fund, you’re more or less secured in any case you would experience some unforeseen circumstances like sickness, unemployment et al.

So, how can you manage your expense? Here are some tips you can take:

1. IDENTIFY YOUR NEEDS AND WANTS

There is always an inner battle in identifying our needs and wants. List down how your expenses flow is today. Needs are usually the ones you can’t live without like housing, food, transportation. But using transportation like uber or grab may not be what you need, but a want to have a better service. Analyze if your expense is acceptable as you may spending more on one aspect than the other. If its hard for you to decide, ask your self the same question each day "Is this something I want?" until you get the right answer.

2. CREATE A REALISTIC BUDGET

Now that you identified your needs and wants, you can now monitor your expenses by creating a more realistic budget. Yes! You should budget everything down to the food that you eat. It is indeed essential to treat yourself from time to time, but you can do this at least few times a week and not everyday. You need to have a frugal mentality. Besides, most rich men thinks frugal. Just look at Mark Zuckerberg and the late Steve Jobs.

Here is a link of a budget sheet you can use to help you in budgeting:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15gVPfWKh7-kUvXRX5YtXL8btSSo9_UpY-CQ_VUTBF-s/edit?usp=sharing

3. LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS

For sure your salary will continuously increase over time and most people have the tendency to increase their expenses as well. It is understandable that people would want to upgrade as it is what you’ve been working hard for anyway. However, it is not advisable to always stretch your means. With your budgeting, try to target the things you want to achieve in years time. This way, you’ll have more time in achieving them and wouldn't be compelled to max out your capacity to pay. It is always better to be liquid.

4. WALK THE TALK AND INVEST!

Now that you have identified the needful expenses, you need to do the hardest part which is to do strict implementation. Use the budget sheet to remind you that you need to save more. Identify where you are spending your money and make adjustments as you go along. Lastly, other than saving your money, you go invest it where you can earn more.

You think you can have 3 month worth of savings by the end of this year?