Week 4: Sept 22-28, 2015

Expenditure: RM325.10

My week’s expenditure was just about average and according to the pattern of my last three weeks, if you ignore the big chunk of unexpected spending due to an incident… proving that you should have money set aside for emergencies. It also makes a more interesting story for this week’s entry because me moaning about being a budgeting failure is getting old. I did groceries. I went out for meals a few times. I treated myself to a coffee twice. I ate all three meals at home today and only spent RM7 on cut fruit and a cup of coffee. I am done with this NSS week.

Some time in the last 14 days, I got out of bed after a morning nap, went out to bring in the laundry, and came back into my bedroom to find that the wardrobe system (above) has collapsed across my bed, along with my hanging wardrobe. It was fortunate that it did not break anything, my face included.

While the arrangement was quite stable in its original position, I was not able to get it back up because at least one part was damaged in the fall and another part may have been the reason why it fell over in the first place. After an hour of trying to restore it to its original state, I found that it remained dangerously wobbly. I gave up, dismantled it and moved it to the storeroom.

Which left me with a problem of what to do with my clothes. A friend suggested that I bring the laundry rack in, which was a great idea. It gave my clothes a home while giving me time to look for an alternative. I knew that all I needed was a clothing rack, preferably one with wheels. Luck was on my side. The day I had time to pop by Boulevard to raid their IKEA section, they had two clothing racks available. One had wheels. It cost me RM81.90 but it’s mobile, a long-term investment and completely necessary.

It doesn’t look like I have a lot of clothes here but I still feel like I have too much, especially when half of these are special occasion clothes… stuff I only wear a couple of times a year while hoping that people forgot I wore the same thing to the last special occasion.

The more frequent wear clothes are in the drawers, and it’s become rather apparent that I’m only wearing half of them although I culled many items earlier this year.

I walked by a shop at CityOne the other day and saw that they had the same line of patch quilt pants that I got in KL and love to bits. Was tempted to get another pair because I wear those as often as I wear my jeans, but I decided to postpone that decision until later.

Two days left. I’m not planning to immediately go out and buy a boat after this is over, even if October is my birthday month and traditionally I’d treat myself to something major like a holiday. The project continues, and my spending habits warrant some more detailed analysis.

Condiment cupboard. #food #foodporn

A photo posted by Georgette Tan (@georgettetan) on Sep 25, 2015 at 11:33pm PDT

Week 3: Sept 15-21, 2015

Balance: RM55.10
Expenditure: RM262.25

I’ve neglected updating because I was really not in the mood to blog. Now nearly two weeks is over; I have one more day tomorrow before I come to the end of Week 4.

What can I say about Week 3? To say that I gave up trying to stick to a certain budget would be half true. There didn’t seem to be any point since I failed to budget realistically at the beginning. There’s a slight change to my header – the balance from the original budget is RM55.10, which I fully expect to exceed. The actual expenditure is RM262.25.

The good news is that I seem to stay between RM200 and RM300, with the amount creeping up steadily to reflect my increasing sense of hopelessness. If you think this is bad, you should see my Week 4 figure. However, something happened this week that I would consider a semi-emergency but fell under ‘Household Items’, which means it counts.

If anything, at least I’m learning what my spending habits look like when I’m trying to toe the line between saving more than usual and treating myself a little at the same time.

Week 2: Sept 8-14, 2015

Budget: RM287.80
Actual: RM232.70

The last two weeks proved my suspicion correct – a budget of RM510 which included groceries was delusional at best. I know now that I made a bad miscalculation that didn’t include the increased cost of living, GST or the fact that I now live on my own and don’t mooch meals (the bulk of the groceries) from the parents.

If I analyse the pattern, there are days when I barely spent anything and days when I spent RM100 in one fell swoop. I spent even more this week, and a lot of that was arguably avoidable. Especially that day when I was stressed from work and bought a whole lot of frivolous food stuff. I managed to avoid books or other types of entertainment, but I derive a lot of my creature comforts from food… which is a terrible slide.

At the same time, I’m also staying in and cooking a lot. I’m using up things I have in the pantry and replacing what I need. I’m keeping track of the best prices of things I regularly need to stock up on. My new favourite supermarket is Unaco Country Side Market; it’s nearby and things are cheaper.

If I included the figure that is exempted from the project, the numbers are much higher. All my bills came in this week. Being able to see my expenses is quite horrifying because I’ve been spending thoughtlessly for months although I was financially stable earlier this year.

Wally the budgeting app is not very helpful at this point. I can’t configure it to my project budget and there’s a few steps I have to take to separate the purchases or payments. In the end, I just made sure to keep recording everything I spent money on and calculate it manually at the end of the week.

I’m not sure how to proceed from here since I have RM55.10 left in the original budget for the rest of the month. Do I top it up with an extra RM200 per remaining week, or do I just do it freestyle?

I’ll sleep on that.

Week 1: Sept 1-7, 2015

Budget: RM119 = RM17/day
Actual: RM222.20

Living on RM17/day might have be far too optimistic. I forgot to add GST to the amount. Went waaaay over the weekly budget.

I decided to go easy on myself the first week. By “going easy”, I was still recording every cent spent and making conscious decisions. To some extent, it is working. This means no overpriced designer coffee just because I was bored, or filling up my fridge with too much fresh produce that isn’t going to get eaten before it rots.

However, there was still unnecessary purchases. Did I really need a jar of raspberry jam? Not so. Did I need to go for a late afternoon snack, followed by dinner, and ending with dessert? It would be better for my wallet if I didn’t, but these were things I did all the time without thinking of anything beyond instant gratification. Did I really spend nearly RM75 on things I put into my face-hole in one day? Yes. Yes, I did. And most of it was just junk.

In a way, this is good to know. I’m getting that rare big picture of where my money is going and it’s shocking. You’ll never guess what she did next. Your jaw will drop.

I’m using an iPhone app called Wally to record all my expenses. The figures you see in the image includes expenses that are not counted as part of No Spend Month (ie bills, etc.). I’m still trying out this app and it serves its purpose so far but there’s a slight learning curve that I’m still trying to get around. I’m less patient with learning the little details of apps these days. Instant gratification and all that.

I’m also keeping track of prices with another app called Grocery Genius, which compares prices of places you’ve shopped. It’s a free version so entries are limited. Anyone got a similar app to recommend? Normally I’d buy the app if I like it but we all stopped looking after the ringgit went past RM4 to USD1.

On to other discoveries and strategies.

The 250g bag of Colombian Arabica at RM28 saved me from getting coffee outside, although spending that money all at once was slightly cringe-y. I found earlier this month that my Starbucks card has a balance of RM0.30. I decided not to top it up. This was another one of my regular cash drains.

Eating a little bit healthier and cooking more. On stocking up the groceries, it’s better to err on less than get too much. I tend to stock up on stuff with a longer shelf life, so instead of getting more stuff, I’m working through what’s in the pantry. Started the morning lemon water habit because I’ve been wanting to try it out.

My plan for the coming week is to plan the social outings better, pack meals and snacks from home, get more fruits, and sell more books from my library.

Now seems like a good time to kick off No Spend Month, after a long hiatus from the blog and an even longer hiatus from the project. I guess I was pretty comfortable financially after my first attempt in 2010. I found something that worked and saw my savings crawl upwards. But it’s a new life now and the old methods don’t work any more.

I looked at my bank accounts a month ago and realised that not only do I own my credit card RM2,000, but my money was draining out. I moved to my own place in February and taken on adult responsibilities such as paying rent and utilities. But I was spending as freely as I always was, even more so when I get excited about adding a new item to the house.

No Spend Month was inspired by Small Notebook, a blog I used to follow. The premise is no spending except on basic essentials for one month. It was helpful in getting me on track before and I know I can do this again.

Here are the details (which applies to both me and the dog):

Budget

• RM510 / RM17 per day

Includes

• Eating out
• Entertainment
• Clothes
• Groceries
• Household items

Does not include

• Rent, bills & insurance
• Work expenses, including petrol
• Health expenses
• Savings

So that I can see where my money is going, I will be recording every single sen that leaves my wallet whether or not they are included or not included in this project.

The pantry is fairly well stocked, including good coffee and far too much junk food, so I don’t really have an excuse to eat out. My Starbucks card also happened to be empty – haha! Entertainment-wise, I have plenty of books to read, a few TV series and movies that I have not watched. Hanging out with friends is going to have to get pretty creative since I don’t have the budget for over-priced food.

I’m already two days in. Not only am I hyper-aware of what I’m using my money for, but my determination carried over into time management. So I’m getting shit done. Good news.

Since I didn’t get to do groceries before September, I already spent a chunk of my budget. But that will be detailed in my report at the end of this week.