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| My monthly personal budget and spending report |
I like interacting with friends and family members struggling with paying up their debts or starting up just after university. You may never find a secret to making it in financial independence in a beginner's investing manual or book or course. It’s the old fashion willpower and discipline. Should you decide to pay yourself first, stick to it whole heartedly. Do it even when it hurts with your eye only on the goal. Pay up that debt and do so quickly. Its never easy to part with money, paying for what you don’t own or appreciate anymore. But its the only way.
It takes me a few months to get a routine in investing or savings going. The excel files that I draw help a lot. I look at various scenarios. Interest rates, amount to invest, monthly transfers to the account, etc. I do projected interest gains for a number of years, imagine that growth and compare with a few saving tools that I consider to be the best safe investing options. I keep my excel files and keep looking how far I am to my goal. My goal is usually getting monthly interest of a certain amount. I am currently using my Nedbank JustInvest 5.15% interest investment account with a goal of getting R1900 in interest. This is because, in the 2012/2013 budget speech, National Treasury increased the annual exemption on interest earned for individuals younger than 65 years from R22 300 to R22 800. This is exactly R1900 per month. In my Nedbank JustInvest case, I will need about R430 000 at 5.15% to get approximately R1900. That’s a lot of money to be left in the money market, I guess.
This discipline applies in growing dividends too. My main goal is to raise my monthly income through dividends, interest and rental properties. My stocks are about dividend income whilst my husband is investing in index funds and never takes his dividends. I buy stocks once in a while. I need to establish a good routine on that too. I must say though, stocks intimidate me. I always invest what I can risk losing in the JSE. I will write about my own version of “basics of stock market investing” later. I am no expert but what I do is working for me. Just do your own research and adjustments. I can’t offer perfect stock investing advice, but what I have done and how I think it met my safe investment needs.
Now that I have changed my mind and am paying off my homeloan, I am applying a lot of discipline to that too. I set a target for myself and I will make it. I divide my leftover money in my account to accelerate my homeloan payment and a little is for my Emergency fund. I feel great when I put money towards my investments and homeloan before I go get yet another watch, bag or shoe. And yes, I still like shopping. I control it and I do it very last. Winning this game of wealth is about discipline. Keep at it with all you have!
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