Financially comfortable Part 1 - Cashflow

Haip, semangat lak cerita hal financial kan.

 

Standard la, tengah baca Ke Mana Wang Anda - Hjh Rohani Datuk Mohd Shahir. One of the best personal financial book I ever read (macam lah banyak financial book i've read kan), not only rhetoric but most of her recommendation are practical and realistic.

 

First thing first, I memang tak faham orang yang suka berhutang.Adakah sebab it is the `in' thing? Or you want to spend more than you earn? Bukankah the ground rule is, to spend only what you have in your bank rimau(hanya contoh, boleh juga guna binatang lain). For housing loan and vehicle loan tu lain cerita la. But still, in this book Puan Hajah kita suggested if you earn RM3000 per month, your ideal monthly installment should be around RM350 to get yourself `financially comfortable'.Tapi come on la get real, MyVi pun installment dalam RM500-RM600 permonth, ni yg standard average ye, 5-7 years loan and moderate down payment. Still, personally I consider it quite comfortable. But what if we get a sedan car that is more trendy and luxurious with monthly installment up to RM900/month? I leave this question for you to decide.

 

That only touch on the hutang yg perlu (vehicle and housing loan).Belum cerita hutang yang kurang perlu (eleh nak sedapkan hati) dan tak perlu.Just look at our credit card balance monthly and think. Are you financially comfortable or not?

 

I myself had started to list down my cashflow every month, starting this year (sebab sebenar adalah perlu start saving utk kahwin-oops).But I am the type yang tak boleh buat benda too details ni, nanti I pening. Sebab tu I memang tak pernah jadi bendahari kat mana-mana even sekolah mahupun universiti.Kerja2 bendahari serah kat my roomate. Hahah iklan jap promosi u, Ami:P OK berbalik cerita my monthly cashflow, mine was quite simple. I did not even detail down my expenses monthly, just sum up and become-`perbelanjaan harian'.I am using blank excel spreadsheet with currently three main tabs:

 

expenses-perbelanjaan harian(termasuk sewa rumah),daily travelling,groceries etc

social obligation-fund,bagi duit kat parents,belanja orang,derma,zakat etc (ni penting ni, sebab boleh mengingatkan diri kalau sebulan    tu tengok you tak contribute langsung kat orang.penting utk keberkatan dan sharing with others:)

kahwin-ni pepandai la, tak perlu detail kot

 

..and each tabs' activities are tracked monthly.How did i do it? Easy.Print/copy paste the transaction details from the online banking platform.Tapi betullah, perlukan disiplin dan keazaman yang tinggi.Once I didn't track my expenses almost for 4 months and had a hard time tracking everything back from the transaction history.But seriously, you have to start documenting all your expenses to be in control of your financial (instead of vice versa). This also serves as an alarm in case you are over spending and found that one month you spend too much than the others.Puan Hajah pun cakap! :)

 

Sebelum itu..do you realize what is missing in my cashflow? DUIT MASUK. Hahaa sepatutnya you have to include this too especially when you have more than one source of income. Tapi since I just makan gaji je I did not actually track it... :)

 

OK ni baru one part, there are a lot more.The answer of our most common inquiries on personal financial, e.g. Macam mana menguruskan kad kredit, Macam mana nak jana ekonomi rumah tangga, Cara nak mengelak berhutang..banyak lagi insya Allah you can find, at least the hints and guidance towards the real answer.  Kalau rajin I will continue more in the future (tapi biasalah I ni janji je pastu tak bukak blog sebulan:P). The best part is... in every chapter Puan Hajah tak pernah tinggal menerapkan unsur-unsur keTuhanan, contoh kena bertaubat kalau dah sedar banyak sangat berhutang, banyak doa kepada Allah supaya kita istiqamah.. macam tu la. Best!

 

Hopefully I can manage Part2, Part3 and seterusnya.. :)

 

Happy planning :)