HOW I MANAGE MY FAMILYS FINANCIAL AS A YOUNG COUPLE

As a young couple, being financially stable is not as easy as we think. Being used to living off our parents will make it more difficult when we start standing on our own. Thank goodness I've practised good financial planning while I was still living from my parents as I didn't have the privilege of financial freedom. I learnt to spend on how much I could only afford and this habit is practised even after I got married. But truth be told, maintaining a good financial as a married couple is way harder than it was when I was single. Let's just say you're on your own, as of course, you wouldn't want to still ask for your parents' help anymore. That's why I needed a little bit of assistance. Read on to know what I'm practising.

I've mentioned before that my husband hands out all his money to me after I became a full-time housewife. So he's savings are in my savings but at the same time, I have my personal savings as well which doesn't mix up even though it's in the same account. How do I manage to keep them apart without getting confused? Well, I received the help from this Piggy Bank app called Money Lover.

I discovered this app when I was in the midst of preparing for my wedding and I needed something that could help me see clearly my financial plans as at that time I had way too much money in my hands for all sorts of things. I went through a bunch of money-saving apps in the app store until I found this one that had everything I needed even for a free version. Yes, I used the free version for several months first until I decided this app is worth my money, so I got the premium version and this was also the first time also I spent money on an app too. 

Yes, I made the right choice to get premium and here I list down why:

1. Tracks Spending

This might be a nuisance for some people but I love this. You can track your daily spendings easily especially those afternoon snacks in the office which you sometimes don't even remember spending money. This helps a lot especially for those who tend to forget where their money went, like me. My mini daily spendings were a lot back then when I was working, mostly because of snacks.

2. Customizable Categories

I love this the most, they even have cute icons to select from too. I love that we're able to customise categories because not everyone's categories are the same and for me, I need detailed categories so I don't mix up easily. You can even create your own parent category and a list of subcategories under it too. I found this super helpful. 

3. Allows Multiple Wallets

For the free version, it only allows 2 wallets while for the premium version you can create as many as you want. Wallets help to separate accounts easily without having to combine everything in one which could be pretty confusing if you have a lot to sort out.

3. Create Budgets (Premium)

This feature is super helpful to keep your Budget on track. Example, your monthly budget for food is RM300 a month, so you could set all the categories under your 'Food' to be tracked in this budget. 

Let say your categories under food and their total spending for a month are:                                

• Snacks: Sum of 10 transactions = RM50
• Meals: Sum of 8 transactions =RM200
• Groceries: 1 transaction= RM150

This is a great way to track how much you are actually spending on a category and to make sure you do not exceed the budget you plan for. You also get to see how much you are still able to spend in each category you set for and if you exceed the limit, Money Lover will send you a warning about it.

I used to use this a lot when I was still single before but now I prefer using the Savings feature instead of this one.

4. Create Savings (Premium)

Savings is the most important feature for me now since I'm in charge of making sure the bills are paid and our monthly expenses are enough. This means I'll have a sum of money which I can't simply splurge on and needed to be put aside. So this Savings feature helps a lot on letting me see clearly how much pocket money I have actually, and how much I could splurge on.

How I do it, is I'll create a saving category for everything I need to put aside, like Rent, Car, Phone Bill and etc. So from there, I'll deposit how much money I need to put aside. For example, my rent every month is RM900. So if I'll have to put aside 2 months rent, I'll deposit in RM1800 in the savings. It sounds almost like the Budget feature, but what's different about this feature is that if you deposit money into a saving, your main wallet money will be deducted showing you the total money that you haven't deposited.

Example:
Main Wallet Shows: RM1000 → Deposit in Savings: RM200 → Main Wallet Shows: RM800

So from there, you'll be able to know how much money you actually have besides checking your bank balance, which I bet sometimes you will tend to forget that some money you have is meant for something else. What I usually do is I deposit everything into savings categories that I've made and only leave my pocket money balance in the main wallet. This makes it easier for me to see how much I could actually spend on.

I also took it to the next level where the total shown in my main wallet is the amount of cash I have in my purse while my spending money in my bank I'll also deposit it into savings so I can't see it. So if I withdraw the money from the atm, I'll also withdraw it from the savings I created. Even if I use my debit card for a transaction, I'll do the same. From there, I could track easily how much money I have left.

6. Shows Payable and Receivable Debts
This feature is very important as well and I used this a lot while I was still single. I don't like to be in debt but sometimes I did need help especially when I was living alone. My parents, of course, were my normal lenders. This feature helps you show how much you owe people and how much people owe you. It also gives a reminder if you haven't paid back to the lender for quite some time. This feature is also great when you go out and your friend pays first so you can easily split the bill among yourselves.

7. Shows Summary Monthly Report

Summary reports help you see clearly how much you've spent and you'll surely be shocked seeing the end number because I bet you won't expect you have spent as much as that. It happened to me for the first few months but now I don't really look at it much because I usually spend within my budget and looking at the end number stresses me even though I don't feel like I've spent a lot.

HOW I USE IT?

Since we don't earn monthly salaries, I had to change our financial planning to a lot of budgets in my savings. My husband is a property agent so you'll know he only receives commissions which doesn't have an exact date. So what I do right now is I have 3 wallets with different functions set up which are:

1. Maybank: Daily Spendings
For me, Maybank is very easy to use on spending for it's Debit Card or even for Maybank2U. So the money I put in Maybank is for spending. I have my own spending money and my family's spending money in my savings account. So usually if we buy groceries or eat outside, it'll always be my card so I don't lose track of how much we tend to spend monthly. So in my Maybank, there would always be enough balance for spending only which I would top-up from time to time.
This makes it easy also to know if I lose any money from the bank also because sometimes the bank auto-deducts without your knowledge. You'll have to check your statement to be able to be able to see what happened to your money. It really helps to notice shortage even with tons of transactions and spending if you only use one account.

2. CIMB: Commitment Savings
I find it much easier paying the bills using CIMB Clicks since I'm used to it. In fact, I'm also the one who pays the bills for my parents as well using their account. I pleaded for them to open up CIMB Clicks, it just gives me a headache thinking how much hassle it was back then. You can read how I pay bills through CIMB Clicks here.
So back on topic, I save my budgeted commitments in CIMB like rent, phone bill, Unifi bill and etc. I also put back-up spending money a bit in CIMB, just in case something happens to my Maybank. But usually, I tend not to use my CIMB account for any spending transactions except for paying the bills only.
So if you look at my Money Lover wallet for CIMB, you'll find it very detailed in the budgeting feature which is for my reference. While for my husband I have to send him a simple summary like this so he understands where his money goes.

3. Bank Islam: Dominant Savings

I rarely use Bank Islam since it's not really friendly online, I keep forgetting my account password and it's such a nuisance to reset it again. So I just use this bank to save money and just check it once a while when I pass by an atm machine. I rarely use the atm machine as well since using Debit Card is much easier now. What I do is if I have extra money and want to save it? I'll instantly transfer it to my Bank Islam, because its a hassle to get the money out. I depend everything online now and I rarely use cash either. So if I deposit money to my Bank Islam, I'll have to go out and withdraw it which I don't really like so I usually avoid it. Get it? I've set my mind that it's just a hassle to withdraw money so I don't tend to use it unless if I really need to. Besides, thinking of it again, it's a good thing too saving is Bank Islam, at least I could save up for Haji.

A post shared by Mira Cikcit (@miracikcit) on Jul 28, 2018 at 7:38am PDT

So this is pretty much how I manage my familys financial. It's critical to make sure we always have a good financial plan since we don't depend on monthly salaries, anything could happen at any time. So it's better we have a financial plan that we can see clearly and this app is a major help for that. I'm not sure if this way is useful for families with stable incomes already but since we're still a young couple and only married for 2 years, we still have a long way to go to gain that financial freedom. I hope this benefits some of you out there too. If you have any questions, just DM me on Instagram

Till then peeps!