Re-thinking about finances

I did my quiet time today and it talked about investing in eternal joy. Among the myriad things it said, it mentioned Clements' Nine Tips for Investing in Happiness. Googling it led me to an interesting financial blog which you can view over here...
http://www.gettingtoenough.com/?p=32

The blog not only has tips from Clements but many other interesting tips that I will probably take up in the New Year to come. I've got to admit this- I'm horrendous at budgeting and other money-related items. Money comes in and money goes out. While I'm not a person who spends beyond what I earn, still, I'm left with virtually no savings at the end of the month.

The problem is I have a debt to repay at about $1300 per month. That in the beloved country I live in is quite a bit. Most couples pay about $900 per month at the most for their housing--that works out to $450 pax. So in effect, my own personal loan is approximately 3 times the ordinary individual's. How it got to be this amount -- well, let's just say, from now on, before I sign up a loan with ANY bank, I will read and re-read the fine print.

However, that's not the only expense I have--tithes plus an allowance to mum, well, that takes up a huge chunk of my pay. By the time, I minus off all these details, I have about $600 left? $600 to factor in food and travel expenditure and handphone bills and leisure and the all-essential foot packages I take. Fortunately, travel expenditure isn't that expensive--it costs only 65 cents to travel to work--so essentially, if I don't go anywhere else after work, it only works out to $1.35 a working day. Bus rides to church are a little longer--$2.40 to and fro. So travel expenses work out to be about $48.90. Of course, usually, travel expenditure isn't so little. I cab to various places. In fact, I seldom take buses to work--that's the truth. That's why my travel expenditure goes up to about $300 per month instead of the mere $48.90 it could go to. I also splurge $140 on a foot massage package because I find that it actually improves my health and eases the pain in the feet due to my profession. I'm just fortunate that if I only dine at my work place, it takes up only about $150 a month? That leaves $10 for my phone bill... and nothing left over for any savings.

So what do I want to do next year? Well, for starters, I would like to start saving? So I'm going to try and cut down on the expenditure for things I can cut down. $1300 on my bank loans is non-negotiable. So, I'm going to have to live with that. So are tithes and allowances to mum--especially since she isn't in good health and she stops work next year. $140 is essential to my health so that leaves me with $460 to work with. If we cap my food expenditure to about $200 a month--that leaves me with $260 to work on. Minusing $50 for phone bill and about $60 for travel expenses, that leaves me with $150.

Okay, make that $100 savings. Let's start with something small and then go on big. Well, technically, the day that my $1300 debt is nullified, I will have that much more savings. Hopefully, by then, due to the habits I've adopted over the next year of saving up, I'll be able to save up at least $1000. :)

Here are some other posts related to finances that have been really interesting...

A free house can be too expensive http://www.gettingtoenough.com/?p=33
Paper envelope budget http://www.2millionblog.com/2007/12/implementing_the_paper_envelope_budget_s.html