A-Particular Meticulous?
The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money.
- Author Unknown
We're on the topic of money here. Sensitive topic and one that is bugging me right now.
I used to be able to save up to nearly a grand a month based on my average salary for a fresh grad, be able to give my parents and gramps about nearly a grand more in total. Now, i am struggling. Struggling to even have a saving every month and also to contribute to the household. Of course, i had increased my expenditure on investment products but it only amounts to about 20% of my take home pay. Where did the rest go to?
I bought my Tigger out of sheer desire, a feeling that i long to fulfil since the day i sold of my Red Donkey Yamaha TW200 in 2006. That was when i could not afford the insurance and road tax back then as a student who had just completed his national service and is into the end of his first year in Uni. I had to sell off my precious bike for a meagre $400. I bought it at $1.3k. That was a 60% loss!
Tigger was bought August last year as a birthday gift for myself and a financial commitment tagged along heavily with it. Even though it was at an affordable monthly rate, but the petrol cost and the maintenance cost, along with the yearly road tax and insurance would kill me every August from now! Save all i can for rainy days and it may all just go to this liability account. Is goal 2011 still on track then?
One of my resolutions this year is to improve myself and one component of it is to be more meticulous, especially in budgeting and work. I tend to see big picture and am not able to micro-manage things down. I flash over details and miss out nitty-gritty stuffs. I tend to be guided more by feel and instinct rather than facts and details. So i aim to improve in this area this year! How?
1. I aim to take more roles of responsibility to be able to exercise this.
2. Include things and plan in my little black book.
3. Use exercise and my fitness plan as a platform to practise this. E.g, the food i eat, my fitness plans, timings and so on.
If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.
- Henry Ford
Because of the lack of meticulous-ness, i felt it may have caused my downfall in the finance part of my lifestyle. Spending beyond my means at times. Not being thrifty and thinking "I can always get my money back the next payday". This days, i think like a poor man i wanna behave like one and eat like one.
My workplace is really a tempting ground for good food and people do not cringe to spend on food as they feel bored with the food served at the cook-house. SO every weekend, they'd shop for groceries to cook over the week. I used to get sucked in into this 'desire' of eating delicious food. And my weight ballooned from 65kg to 73kg over the year plus i was there. These days, i eat mostly cookhouse food and eat like a poor man. Small servings over 6 meals.
There are plenty of ways to get ahead. The first is so basic I’m almost embarrassed to say it: spend less than you earn.
- Paul Clitheroe
It's also not conducive such that the job is very 'equipment-based'. As an outdoor practitioner, you would want to use good, quality stuffs so that it lasts long and weighs less. After learning and practising barefoot walking, along with reading 'Born to Run', i am now more predisposed to patching up my shoes and using it even when it's 3 years old! Anyway, you don't need cushioning.
Lastly, i am trying to reduce on expenditure bills.
Phone and petrol. Where-ever possible, i try to walk or run. I hope to be able to improve my budgeting and financial well-being so that i can give a good life for my loved ones.
In summary, two things i shall work on from today. Meticularity and budgeting. All this will be helped by my little black book. And of course, my love for life.
Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.
- Henrik Ibsen
