daily scribble entry #92
Leaving my parents' house for the first month is financially tricky.
The "only buy what I need" or "x per cent for essentials and y per cent for luxury" mantra isn't as simple as it sounds.
Trying to quickly repay my last month's deficits by bumping up the upcoming month's savings per cent isn't realistic either.
So I decided to view it long-term by not restricting myself in any of those senses: for now, what matters is training myself to overspend generally less and less.
Here's how I plan to do that:
- I sum up all my daily spending last month,
- Calculate how much I overspent (my calculated budget minus that total spending)
- Estimate how much I overspent on average within (1) a day and (2) a week,
- For the upcoming month, every time I'm tempted to overspend on something, I'd look at those two values from point no. 3 (if the to-overspend value is closer to the daily-overspent, then I look at that. If it's closer to weekly-overspent, then I look at that). The rule's simple: if what I'm to overspend on is less than the appropriate overspent value, then it's a go—no question on whether it is essential or not.
This way, by the end of the upcoming month, I should have overspent less than the previous month.
If repeat the same method for the subsequent months, I should, theoretically, overspent less and less and less ...
... up to a point where I no longer overspend, and, still taking it long-term way, I'd progress towards actually saving; slowly saving more and more as I progress.
I know nothing of financial life. But my bet is financial stability is a marathon rather than a sprint.
Let's see where this goes.
#92: if you can't (yet) save, then just overspend less.
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