11
How I save My Money - Effectively (at least for now.)
Saving! That's like one topic that even when you're still in your Mommy's womb, your folks have been talking about it. Why they even think about it in the first place? Simple, to fund the process of you growing up. That is to sum up, giving you enough food to eat, to provide a comfortable place for you to live in, to give you good education and to have some cash prepared just in case something unexpected happen - touch wood lah hor.
Now, saving and savings are two different things. The former refers to an increase in one's assets, an increase in net worth, whereas the latter refers to one part of one's assets, usually deposits in savings accounts, or to all of one's assets. Now, I'm not going to give you a boring talk about the important of saving or savings but what I would like to share with all of you is how I actually do it, my way.
How much should I save? That is the question that often comes across my mind. Is as long as I can save, even as little as a buck, enough? Or should I save one grand per month? While the more is the better, a realistic target is equally important too. Now, realistically for myself, a few hundred is affordable. I don't earn that much to set aside a lot but I think, comfortably I can live by that.
I once read this book by Azizi Ali, titled "Millionaires are From a Different Planet!". I must say it's an amazing book. That was the very first book that snapped me out of my dream land and said;
"Hey, dude! What have you done?".
It kinda open me up a bit to read more on personal finance. I know, I should have started a long time ago but not a surprise, you can ask around, not many of us are aware of this part of their life. So, I said to myself - It's not too late to do so.
When it comes to the topic of saving, sometimes it's hard to give an exact answer. Ask a friend, how much he/she save monthly and they'd probably say;
"About a hundred"
"A few hundreds"
Often you got answers like this. "about", "around", "sometimes" and some would probably tell you,
"Where got enough money to save?"
But if you asked me, I can confidently tell you that I save an exact amount of RM 580 per month. It's not a staggering one grand a month but that is the best that I can do at least for now. You gotta start off somewhere, right?
A few of us were talking about this topic over the supper table and there was this friend of mine saying that saving a hundred buck is like not saving at all and it is somewhat an amount that she would think very little. She later added that she would like to have at least a saving up to a thousand monthly, now that is what she would like to call a saving.
I asked her,
"How much did you save?"
The answer I got was, almost none. Now, if a few hundred or even a hundred you can't really save, what make you think you can save a grand? While being positive is good, like I said before being realistic is also equally important. My advice was, start small. Take a hundred monthly. It won't hurt that much. It might be little, but just try.
I myself started small, I initially started with RM 100 a month. But I think somehow, along the way I got the tactic wrong because by next month I'd be using that money and serious shit I sometimes did not set aside that amount at all. I wonder where did it all went wrong?
As I go along the way, I bump into this system which they call, "Pay Yourself First". It's like this, on the very first day of your payday, set aside you saving and then proceed to pay off whatever that is there you have to pay. I think I read that somewhere in Azizi Ali's book and also in KC Lau's "Top Money Making Tips For Malaysians". That was the day that I decided to place a SI (standing instruction) to transfer RM 100 to an account with another bank every month. At first it was a little bit hard because I tend to take out that money whenever I want to go shopping but after a few months, I can't feel the money anymore. I'm used to not having that RM 100 in my pocket and so it stayed there.
Saving is also one part of "Investment". If you have zero saving, what is there to invest with? Like any other bumiputera out there, yes I am a bumiputera just in case you don't know ( a lot of people here are still puzzled over my ethnicity status), I am eligible for ASB investment. Now this is one investment tool that I think all of you bumiputeras out there should take advantage of. Use it, seriously. Since you're given the privilege to do so, do it while you can. Sad to say that most of our bumis, do not really fully utilized this privilege. It's a waste. This is one hell of an easy ride that can easily give you 7%-9% ROI annually, no joke I tell you! Maybe at some other time I will elaborate more about ASB, not that I know much about it anyway.
When the FIs introduced the ASB Investment Plan (I think it was back a few years ago that I first heard about it) I was a little skeptical. You know, like some of my friends they always say - "Bank tipu orang". Okay, I'm not going to defend that statement. It's up to you. I took up a loan to finance my ASB, although I would not advice you to do so because of the interests charged a little too not over you hoo-haa, unless you have a lot of cash then you can do it without the loan. I pay RM 140 every month for that. That was like a forced saving for me. In a way, a hard way it kind of giving me the discipline to save. After a year, I decided to add on to my loan and taking advantage of the situation but opted for another RM 140. That's RM 280 in total.
These are my only tools for saving at the moment. And I added another two SIs worth RM 100 each to another two different accounts and that make a total of RM 580. And that is how I save my money. And subsequently, after the savings reached RM 400, I will transfer them to my unit trust investment. I haven't got enough to buy more but if you do have a lot of cash, now is the time to buy but be extra careful. Even though the power of leveraging looks pretty promising, there are some things that you need to deal with carefully and that would not be an area that I can say a lot of things because honestly, I am still learning.
Now, saving and savings are two different things. The former refers to an increase in one's assets, an increase in net worth, whereas the latter refers to one part of one's assets, usually deposits in savings accounts, or to all of one's assets. Now, I'm not going to give you a boring talk about the important of saving or savings but what I would like to share with all of you is how I actually do it, my way.
How much should I save? That is the question that often comes across my mind. Is as long as I can save, even as little as a buck, enough? Or should I save one grand per month? While the more is the better, a realistic target is equally important too. Now, realistically for myself, a few hundred is affordable. I don't earn that much to set aside a lot but I think, comfortably I can live by that.
I once read this book by Azizi Ali, titled "Millionaires are From a Different Planet!". I must say it's an amazing book. That was the very first book that snapped me out of my dream land and said;
"Hey, dude! What have you done?".
It kinda open me up a bit to read more on personal finance. I know, I should have started a long time ago but not a surprise, you can ask around, not many of us are aware of this part of their life. So, I said to myself - It's not too late to do so.
When it comes to the topic of saving, sometimes it's hard to give an exact answer. Ask a friend, how much he/she save monthly and they'd probably say;
"About a hundred"
"A few hundreds"
Often you got answers like this. "about", "around", "sometimes" and some would probably tell you,
"Where got enough money to save?"
But if you asked me, I can confidently tell you that I save an exact amount of RM 580 per month. It's not a staggering one grand a month but that is the best that I can do at least for now. You gotta start off somewhere, right?
A few of us were talking about this topic over the supper table and there was this friend of mine saying that saving a hundred buck is like not saving at all and it is somewhat an amount that she would think very little. She later added that she would like to have at least a saving up to a thousand monthly, now that is what she would like to call a saving.
I asked her,
"How much did you save?"
The answer I got was, almost none. Now, if a few hundred or even a hundred you can't really save, what make you think you can save a grand? While being positive is good, like I said before being realistic is also equally important. My advice was, start small. Take a hundred monthly. It won't hurt that much. It might be little, but just try.
I myself started small, I initially started with RM 100 a month. But I think somehow, along the way I got the tactic wrong because by next month I'd be using that money and serious shit I sometimes did not set aside that amount at all. I wonder where did it all went wrong?
As I go along the way, I bump into this system which they call, "Pay Yourself First". It's like this, on the very first day of your payday, set aside you saving and then proceed to pay off whatever that is there you have to pay. I think I read that somewhere in Azizi Ali's book and also in KC Lau's "Top Money Making Tips For Malaysians". That was the day that I decided to place a SI (standing instruction) to transfer RM 100 to an account with another bank every month. At first it was a little bit hard because I tend to take out that money whenever I want to go shopping but after a few months, I can't feel the money anymore. I'm used to not having that RM 100 in my pocket and so it stayed there.
Saving is also one part of "Investment". If you have zero saving, what is there to invest with? Like any other bumiputera out there, yes I am a bumiputera just in case you don't know ( a lot of people here are still puzzled over my ethnicity status), I am eligible for ASB investment. Now this is one investment tool that I think all of you bumiputeras out there should take advantage of. Use it, seriously. Since you're given the privilege to do so, do it while you can. Sad to say that most of our bumis, do not really fully utilized this privilege. It's a waste. This is one hell of an easy ride that can easily give you 7%-9% ROI annually, no joke I tell you! Maybe at some other time I will elaborate more about ASB, not that I know much about it anyway.
When the FIs introduced the ASB Investment Plan (I think it was back a few years ago that I first heard about it) I was a little skeptical. You know, like some of my friends they always say - "Bank tipu orang". Okay, I'm not going to defend that statement. It's up to you. I took up a loan to finance my ASB, although I would not advice you to do so because of the interests charged a little too not over you hoo-haa, unless you have a lot of cash then you can do it without the loan. I pay RM 140 every month for that. That was like a forced saving for me. In a way, a hard way it kind of giving me the discipline to save. After a year, I decided to add on to my loan and taking advantage of the situation but opted for another RM 140. That's RM 280 in total.
These are my only tools for saving at the moment. And I added another two SIs worth RM 100 each to another two different accounts and that make a total of RM 580. And that is how I save my money. And subsequently, after the savings reached RM 400, I will transfer them to my unit trust investment. I haven't got enough to buy more but if you do have a lot of cash, now is the time to buy but be extra careful. Even though the power of leveraging looks pretty promising, there are some things that you need to deal with carefully and that would not be an area that I can say a lot of things because honestly, I am still learning.
