HivePH: Budget Tracking, Backstory, and Financial Literacy

I always watch a video on YouTube where they are asking and interviewing successful people and there is similar advice that you will commonly hear from them; start early. It is why at my age, I am doing my best to learn about financial literacy and that includes budgeting my finances.

Learning about budgeting is a powerful tool to determine why you are not having progress in growing your money and not saving enough for your emergency fund.

At my age, I am still dependent on my parents, so I don’t spend a lot of my money on food, house essentials, etc. However, I am challenging myself to be financially independent by not asking for money from my parents. Basically, I spend my money buying the things that I need and want.

This event is very timely because this week, I have to budget for my needs on school and personal stuff. Before the end of September, I set 500 pesos amount of money to the budget and buy the things that I will need for school.

Here are my expenses for this week:

• 3 Tshirts on Shopee = 256 pesos
• 2 Notebooks = 50 pesos
• Graphing paper = 5 pesos
• Snacks (Food and Drinks) ≈ 50 pesos
• Spotify Premium = 23 pesos
• Miscellaneous = 20 pesos

Budget: 500 pesos
Total Expenses: 404 pesos
Remaining balance: 96 pesos

Backstory

Since the face-to-face class is nearly approaching, I decided to buy 3 additional shirts that I can use. Wearing the school uniform is not a requirement for now so it is fine to wear civilian clothes. However, there was a late announcement that if we are not going to wear a school uniform, we should wear a shirt that has a touch of orange (color code of engineering as they said). Unfortunately, I don’t have it so I think I will need to spend again how suck is that huh? I’m trying to save money!

I also had to buy snacks but you will see that I only spend approximately 50 pesos because my parents are usually the ones who buy food and snacks. I only buy food for myself when I feel that I deserve it and I did a great job for the whole day, it serves as my reward for myself (but not all the time).

I also bought things that I will need like a notebook and graphing paper. Online classes taught students to become lazy and taking notes hasn’t been part of my learning routine in the past nearly 3 years because of the new way of learning. And now, I am regretting not taking notes because I have nothing to review before the face-to-face classes.

I also purchased another premium subscription to Spotify because I use it when I feel stressed in my studies by playing loud music while answering calculus to minimize the stress (it works for me…somehow). I also love listening to music and podcasts.

And hey! As you will notice, I only spent 23 pesos for a premium account. Well, here’s the life hack! If you are a student, you can register and purchase their student plan which is 65 pesos per month only. It has the same feature of individual plan where you can save ≈50%. This only works for students above 18 years of age.

Then you can save more using Shopeepay and purchase a load (mobile load?) where they are offering up to 90% off. In my case, I manage to buy 2 offers of 20 pesos load with 90% off so I received a 40 pesos load where I only spent 2 pesos. Then I have a remaining balance of more or less 20 pesos, so I added 20 pesos load and pay it exactly 20 pesos. A total of 23 pesos load for a 65 peso premium account on Spotify.

Then finally, I have 20 pesos for miscellaneous. I had a total of 404 pesos in expenses for this week. I don't usually spend this much each week. It is just I need to buy things for school purposes.

Realizations

For the whole week, I realized that you should include unexpected expenses on your budget so you will not face a financial issue when there’s an unexpected event where you will need monetary support.

Also, tracking your expenses is very important for you to determine why you are not saving money, why you stay poor and know the real difference between your needs and wants. If you are young, start saving and investing a portion of your money for you to become financially independent. It is hard to live , in reality, if you used to depend on your parents.

Buying cheap things doesn’t mean that you are a cheapskate or miser, it means you are being practical in life. On the other hand, don’t take it too much, learn to spend money where you will get a benefit for the long term…even if it is expensive. It is always nice to know the difference between your needs and wants, don’t fool yourself by saying “deserve ko ‘to” even though you know that the thing is just a desire. Spend your money wisely.

About the author

_{Mark Laurence, also known as Laurenceuuu and anonymous02 is a student who is currently taking a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. He is expanding his knowledge and skills by blogging where he mostly writes about self-development, cryptocurrency, making money online, and how-to articles.}

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_{Graphics are made and designed by the author using Visme. All images are mine unless stated otherwise. Page dividers are from TheTerminal}