![]() ![]() Tan said married couples who wish to budget together can have four accounts in total – one income account each, and two joint accounts, one each for savings and expenses. ![]() What if you’re married, like Png? He and his wife maintain two accounts – a joint one into which his salary is credited, and his wife’s which serves as their savings account. So long as your discretionary spending is within what’s left in your salary account, it will ensure you don’t overspend. “Every month, you just automatically transfer the amount you need for (fixed) expenses to one account, and the amount you want to save to the other,” he said. His advice: Set up three bank accounts – the first, for crediting your salary the second, for expenses and the third, for savings. For example, MoneySense, Singapore’s national financial education programme, has a handy calculator to help Singaporeans estimate their typical expenses and set up a budget.ĭO I REALLY NEED TO TRACK ALL MY EXPENSES TO BE A GOOD BUDGETER?īudgeting may be daunting to some – especially when there are stories of people who write down everything they spend on, including the bowl of noodles they had for lunch – but, said Tan, it can actually be very simple. There are also tools online that can help you track your budget, Ong said. “The problem with credit cards is that by the time you realise you’ve overspent, it’s a bit too late, because the bill only comes a few weeks after you spend,” he said.Īnd if you don’t pay it off on time and in full, interest repayments can snowball very quickly with the effects of compounding. This is a habit that Jasmin said she will need to get into: While she does try to set aside almost a third of her salary each month for savings, the amount changes depending on her expenses, such as her online shopping habit.Īnother way you can improve financial discipline is to use a debit card instead of a credit card, said Tan. “If you do it the other way around, you might not see a steady flow of savings,” said Ong. This means setting aside a fixed amount for savings before factoring in the expenses. The most important thing to note, said both experts, is to “pay” yourself first. HELP! I DON’T KNOW HOW TO START ORGANISING MY FINANCES. ![]() ![]() In the first of a two-part series on financial moves to make in your 20s and 30s, we get financial experts to share about good savings and budgeting habits young people should have.Ĭhristopher Tan, CEO of Providend, and Jolene Ong, an associate trainer at the Institute for Financial Literacy, give their take on Jasmin’s and Png’s situations. The turmoil of the past 18 months has made Singaporeans more aware about the need for both short and long-term financial planning. How much, he wonders, should he be spending, saving and allocating his budget differently – now that he’s no longer single? Then there’s father of two Png Chin Teck, 32 - who has a new house on the way and renovations to pay for. Now working as a swabber, she wonders: Are there better ways she can plan her budget and save for a rainy day?Īmid all this, how can she save up for her wedding, which she hopes will be in 2023? SINGAPORE: Jasmin Jayadas lost her job in the COVID-19 pandemic and wiped out her savings to pay for a graduate diploma course. ![]()
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