E R I K A

I know you guys probably received a lot of cash this year! (From collecting otoshidama s or in the Philippines 'pamasko'!) So, why not start off with money saving tips from me! lol. Tho I'm no money saving expert..

Since my husband is the only one working in our household, I really need to step my 'budget game' up! This 'budget plan' is only for the two of us tho. The baby is not included yet. I will update once I get a hang of budgeting while we have a baby around. Okay, here it goes~

My husband's salary is ¥200,000 or $2,000. Sometimes he'll have good months sometimes he'll have meh months. But, I only concentrate on ¥200,000 monthly. When he receives let's say, ¥250,000 this month I WILL NEVER TOUCH the extra ¥50,000 because we may use it for when he has bad or meh months where he'll only receive probably about ¥150,000 or we can save it directly to our savings account. So, ¥200,000 it is!

With the ¥200,000 I only withraw ¥150,000 or $1,500 because I save the remaining ¥50,000 for our cellphone, gas and water bills. So with the ¥150,000~

• BILLS: ¥80,000 or $800
• FOOD/GROCERIES: ¥40,000 or $400
• OUR ALLOWANCE: ¥20,000 or $200
• CAR GASOLINE: ¥10,000 or $100

We have ¥80,000 under bills because we need to pay for our credit card expenses aswell, which is around ¥30,000 but once we're done paying for that which I think is by February we can add the extra ¥30,000 for when one of our bills went up, for our food/groceries, if we want to get something for the car or we can save it!

We each get ¥10,000 or $100 for our 'blow money'. We can do whatever we want with this money but once we ran out of our 'blow money' even though the month has not yet ended it officially means we're broke until the next payday! lol. I usually spend my 'blow money' on stuff we need for the house because I'm a sahw and pregnant.. I don't go out much so I really don't need 'blow money'. However, we also deduct the things we need for the house under food/groceries especially when we need to pay a lot for our bills.

As for the car insurance that we have to pay yearly, our car loans or if something ever happens to our car we have an 'emergency fund'. My husband's company automatically deducts ¥20,000 or $200 from his salary to transfer onto his bank account where you can't freely withraw money from. My husband is required to sign some papers first before he can withraw money from that bank. Cool huh?!

Our insurance and the apartment we're living in is also covered by his company. His company automatically deducts from his salary our insurance and apartment expenses 'coz we live under his company's apartment. In Japanese it's called 'ryou' or in tagalog, 'pabahay'.

Now I don't have to worry about all that difficult, brain melting numbers! All I need to worry and manage is our budget and saving for our future!

• PAY YOURSELF FIRST ~ I've heard this from everyone and I think it's the most effective. Everytime you receive your salary the rule is to save 10% of your income onto your savings fund. But it doesn't matter whatever cost you want to 'pay yourself' the important thing is you saved that money ahead so you won't be able to spend it later on. This is a lot more effective rather than saving what is left from your money. In our case since ¥200,000 is just enough for us, we may only 'pay ourselves' when my husband receives good months or when he gets his bonus. In this case, we can only save up what's left of our money for the month and the ¥500s we get to save for our piggy bank.

• MEAL PLANNING ~ We always think of what we want to eat for the week ahead of time so I know what we only need to buy and no food goes to waste. We go grocery shopping every week so I don't know about you but some of you probably go bulk buying. Like my aunt she goes grocery shopping and buys food for the whole month! That plan will probably work if you folks have deep freezers which unfortunately, we don't have. I think buying groceries for the whole month will save you tons of money but that just wouldn't work for us. Plus, we like our fruits and veggies fresh so grocery shopping weekly suits us best!

• SAVE 'EM GOLD COINS ~ I don't know about your country but here in Japan we have ¥500 which looks like these:I like to pretend I'm a leprechaun and collect gold coins! Hehehe.. everytime we go shopping and I receive these which is pretty rare 'coz I usually get ¥100s from change. I always immediately put it inside my Rilakkuma bank because if it ever stayed on my wallet, tendency I might spend it. You will never miss it and it's easy to save instead of ¥100s because you need those almost everyday. Within just a year you'll never notice that you have atleast saved up to almost ¥300,000 or $3,000. My mom does this all the time and she's the one who actually inspired me to start collecting ¥500s. She once told me and I'm not even kidding that she saved up to ¥700,000 within just a year from saving these ¥500 beauties! Holy cow!

• SAVE ALL THE EXTRA ~ This is not the ideal way of saving but this is how I usually keep money because ¥200,000 is just enough for us. Everytime I withraw money from the atm and there's still money left from last month be it only ¥1,000 or $10, I always set it aside (except for coins). I don't deposit it in the bank immediately but I just set it aside for a while, keep it in another wallet. That way, I can always use it for when my husband receives meh months so we don't have to withraw money from our savings account. Or whenever it reaches up to a ¥10,000 - ¥20,000 and we have no use for it 'coz hubby gets good months it goes in the bank!

• NEVER USE A CREDIT CARD ~ If you're ever planning on getting one I suggest YOU STOP YOUR FOOLISHNESS RIGHT NOW! lol. I don't recommend getting a demon card especially if your the type of person who has NO CONTROL which was ME before. You will never save money when you get a card. In our case, we only use our card for important stuff like furnitures we have to get from the internet ('coz it's a lot cheaper) but, we never use it for shopping for clothes or for the things WE WANT. It's better to shop with cash so you'd only get what you really really want instead of a card where there's a possibility that you might also get something you will never even use! BELIEVE ME! I've been that fool before. And good thing our demon card only limits us up to ¥100,000 only.

I think that's about all the tips I can give you. I hope they're helpful! I've slightly tweaked a lot of the things I said from the previous 'Japanese Ver.' of my post 'coz it's really difficult to translate in english back again. lol. So here is my opinion on:

• NUMBER ONE reason why I want to save money and why you should too is because I WANT TO INVEST IN A HOUSE! If you're like me who dreams of getting their own house I suggest you save, save, SAVE! Here in Japan, getting a house is no joke. It takes atleast 30+ years for you to pay full price for a house! And it's not even a mansion, it's just a normal looking house! We'll be 60+ years old by the time we're done! Omg. So I thought if we could atleast save enough money to pay half for the house, we only get to pay 15 years of loan which is not so bad right?

• WEDDING ~ We never had a ceremony so we're saving for ours! If you plan on getting married, you and your partner should SAVE for your future or if your single just save for your own future. lol. (Wtf am I saying? Really?)

• TRAVEL ~ Everyone wants to travel! If you dream of travelling like us, what better way to pursue your dreams? Save your dough, bro! lol.

• YOU'LL NEVER LIVE IN A NURSING/RETIREMENT HOME ~ If you saved enough money for your future.. you'll never live there! Plus, you don't need your future children for support. They can peacefully live there own lives without you being a bother. Uh oh! No offense but for me, PERSONALLY when I grow old I would never want to bother my future children to take care of me.. I don't want to be a burden. That's just me, okay?!

• NEVER HAVE TO BORROW MONEY FROM PEOPLE ~ No offense again, not that I have something againts people who borrow money! But wouldn't it be nice to have enough money for your own that whenever something comes up you never have to bother borrowing from other people ever? Again, that's just me, y'know!

I guess that's it you guys! I am personally not good with numbers so I guess these are the easiest tips I can give you with budgeting and saving money. I've tried listing everything which what my grandma does and believe me, ain't nobody got time for that s***! Plus, it will stress you out! lol. So I hope these tips are helpful you guys! BYE!