Happy Friday! I know most of you have been dreading the work week because after all, we all came from a very long vacation! Well whaddaya know? It's the weekend once more! :)
Our Fan Mail Fridays for today is a good topic that could help you with your financial resolutions this year. Thanks to one of my readers, Mickey, for bringing this up!
Hey Martha!
I remember you mentioned back in your candy bauletto
marshmallow experiment post way back that you work hard to achieve your financial goals that year. Can you do a blog post with a couple of personal finance tips for women?
Mickey
Hey Mickey!
Happy New Year! Just to set things straight, I'm in no way trying to be a financial advisor or expert here-I'm just a simple girl who has her own strategy when it comes to saving money and hitting financial goals so please, take my tips with a grain of salt. As always, what works for me may not work for you and vice versa!
Some of my best posts in this blog, according to my readers, are the ones about Delaying Gratification-mini stories of my personal success on achieving my material dreams. (To give you a background, click HERE)
Now aside from the happy ending of my stories, I guess what everyone wants to know is how the story or my journey went. Click READ MORE to know how I was able to achieve my material goals.
Okay to set things straight once more, what I shall discuss in this post only applies to spending on material pleasures (be it a car, shoes, bags, clothes, jewelry, gadgets, and the likes). This does not include the savings for your daily expenses, emergency, children, and retirement. (Please visit a trusted finance blog or consult with a legit financial advisor for those) These rules could be applicable to other investments too, but I won't comment on that because I haven't done any form of investment myself. ;)
Photo Credits: biggerpockets.com
THE 50/50 RULE
This, my friends, is the golden rule I follow when it comes to spending and buying my dream items. My boyfriend read it from a book and he shared it with me-it was a very sound advice and I tried it with my first luxury bag purchase, Prada Tessuto Gaufre' and I loved it.
So how does the 50/50 Rule work?
BEFORE BUYING YOUR DREAM ITEM, YOU HAVE TO EARN 50/50 FIRST. 50% GOES TO YOUR DREAM ITEM, 50% GOES TO YOUR SAVINGS.
So let's say Prada Lux Saffiano's retail price in the Philippines is P74,000.00 and this is your material goal for this year. That means you have to earn P148,000.00 in your spending account this year before purchasing this item. It's that simple. The beauty of this rule is, you get to own your dream item without worrying that you'll go broke and borrowing money the next day because you still have the other 50% that you can divide within your other funds, use to spend on a daily basis, or use on situations that need immediate funding. In short, the other 50% is your safety net that will help you get by until the next payday.
The first time I did it, I challenged myself. Instead of 50/50, I changed the latter value to 200 so my personal spending rule became 50/200. 50% went to the item, 200% went to my savings. So if my dream item costs P100,000, I should earn P400,000.00. Heck, if Bill Gates can amass wealth, you and I can too because we're all the same-we all poop, pick our noses, cry, and get sick. :D
I was successful with my 50/200 rule the first time I did it and I loved it even more because I also got to buy clothes and shoes to match my bag, go out and have a nice meal in a decent restaurant, treat my BF, friends, and family, and pay for my dog's sudden hospitalization, but still have a good amount of savings left in the bank.
If you don't buy the 50/50 rule, here's another way to save for that dream item:
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Photo Credits: examiner.com
I had a discussion with one of my friends, Tara, who used to work for a big insurance company regarding saving for your material pleasures. She mentioned a good way to achieve your dream item and that is by growing your money by means of investment. Manual saving (aka storing your money in the bank) will take a lot of time whereas investing it can shorten the waiting period. This pretty much works for any material goal, but could be a more favorable option for mega expensive items such as a car, a Rolex Watch, or a Chanel Quilted Flap or Hermes Birkin. Investments also help minimize the effort you have to exert by making your money work for you. Investments I know are Mutual Fund, Stocks, and Forex-just choose whatever platform that you feel is perfect for you.
Photo Credits: telegraph.co.uk
Word of caution though, material pleasures could be dangerous for you especially if you are attached to it. You may end up touching your personal, emergency, daily expense, and retirement savings just for the sake of achieving your material goal so I would suggest that you set up a separate account for it. If you put everything in one account, you might think that you have already achieved your target savings and you'll snag your dream item right away, but when you start to count and check your money, it says otherwise. Between you and the item, you're the one who has the brain so be wise and stick with your principles-it will help you in the future. If you don't hit your target savings this year, there's always the next one!
Oh, and one more thing: BE DETACHED FROM YOUR DREAM ITEM! This will prevent you from making foolish decisions such as borrowing money from people and the bank, paying installment for the item, and selling your house just to get it!
Hope you liked this post! Please feel free to share more wise words regarding finance on the comment section. I hope you all achieve your goals this year! :D
**Got a burning question about makeups, skin care products, beauty, dieting, and health tips, relationships, and whatever? Just send them to martha.stabarbara@yahoo.com or shoot 'em up at The Beauty Junkee's FB Fan Page via the MESSAGE button and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. (Please, do not send me Math- related queries. :D)
20 Comments
Very helpful Ms. M & truly inspiring. Will definitely bookmark it and start on my 50/50 savings soon! :)
ReplyDeleteI love this entry, you touched on a topic I think every working woman is having a problem, I'm so happy with the advise, thank you so much for sharing
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this Ms. M, timing since I'm planning to save more this year. I'll do that 50 50. What usually happens to me is, I'll buy my dream item then I'll end up bankrupt hihi :D This one is very useful. I'll also do the money challenge you shared on FB :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. It's really my goal this year to make my savings healthy. I started to use a different account for my savings last month, and so far, I'm doing good at controlling myself to touch it. Haha! The 50-50 rule would be really hard for me, but I think I'll give it a try. Challenge accepted! :))
ReplyDelete"Be detached from your dream item." AMEN
ReplyDeleteI use a similar strategy. Whatever I earn, I only use 50% of it. The other 50% goes automatically to saving or investing. But I have yet to fully engage with the investing part.
Very interesting tip for saving for a big ticket item! My husband and I have a very strict budgeting system, which includes a "fun" budget. This means that every week (or month, or year) we have money allotted for fun stuff, be it a nice splurge on a meal or buying ourselves some toys or books. We make sure we don't go over this budget, so that we won't eat into the money allotted to the essentials (money, gas, etc). We've been doing it for years and it works!
ReplyDeleteGreat advice Ms. Martha! For me, I would like to challenge myself with your 50/200 strategy. I think that money's really hard to come by and to buy my dream item, I should have proved myself worthy of buying that item. Most of the time, I would just like to save up all my money, but it's really hard to resist temptation so I guess the only way is to just challenge myself with a goal. When the goal is not achieved, no dream item for me, as easy as that no excuses. Thanks for sharing this! I'll always be keeping it in mind when I handle my financial expenses :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the 50/50 rule. It's a very useful strategy!
ReplyDeleteThis is inspiring! My strategy is similar, my "free money" is actually 10% of my savings when I feel the need to splurge. Mas kuripot. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm curious, and you may or may not answer, at what age did you earn your first million?
Didn't know about the 50/50 rule..thanks for this! :)what I do is the pyramid savings (as I call it, someone advised it to me but can't recall how it was called) that is I save P50 for the first week, P100 on the second week, P150 on the third, and so on..so by the end of the year I will have enough money to buy for whatever I want. :)))
ReplyDeletethanx for sharing very helpful, I will try this 50/50 rule.... praying na I would not spent na too much for everything and saving less... kekeke.... a really big help for me, from a shopaholic....
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite posts by far, thank you for sharing this, i'm just 12 and if it weren't for this maybe 12 months from now i only have 0 savings just because of the LV i've been saving for, so super thanks :)) helped ALOT :) A lesson to last for a lifetime!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing :) A lesson to last for a lifetime! :))
ReplyDeleteVery timing...I am a certified shopaholic but this month, I tallied down my expenses and income and it went negative :(
ReplyDeleteHave been wanting to go shopping as a means of stress reliever, but my planner (which is where I noted down my income and expenses) prevented me to do so... It is really a good thing to list them down so you can see the overall picture.
Good thing with the rule though..Hope I can do that too and be consistent..
the only thing that makes me insured is that I am a member of a cooperative which deducts a certain amount from my payroll that ensures I actually have a savings which I could look forward too and does not enable me to touch it unless I withdraw from the program.
This year, will try to invest in stock markets.
I like the 50/50 rule. It makes sense when you've actually explained it. Thanks for sharing! xo, Nikki P.
ReplyDeleteHi Girls! Glad you liked this. :)
ReplyDeleteKim: Thanks for sharing. :) 25. :)
Roxanne: I think that saving strategy is going around Facebook. They call it the 52 week money challenge. I'm doing it too! :D
Right! that someone who told me said that he saw it on facebook too..but I didn't see it actually on my facebook newsfeed (I wonder why..) my news feed seems late in news.. :( I just knew about it when someone told me.. :)
ReplyDeleteito ang isa sa major goal ko for 2014 ang magtipid =) thanks for this very helpful tip ms m you're the best!
ReplyDeleteI super agree with the 50/50 rule. One thing I could also share is the "Income-Savings=Expenses" rule. In this, 30% of your total income automatically goes to your savings, and what's left is what you could spend. This helps to truly build one's savings, so we'd still have money and not go broke after all that expenses. :)
ReplyDeletethe 50/50 rule makes sense... I will try that! :) thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteLet me know what you think of this post! :)