Hello everyone! My name is Andrey Bunbich, I am a pastry chef and author of a culinary blog. Today I want to tell you how, without a stable income, I manage to save money.
For over 5 years I have been working for myself. I am engaged in advertising projects for bloggers, and in the last 2 years I have become a blogger myself. I do not have a stable income, one month I can earn 100,000 rubles, the next 10,000, and I may not get anything at all.
At the same time, I have a wife and a small child, whom I need to provide, and I also dream of building my own house. But with my unstable income, it is quite difficult to save a certain amount every month. Therefore, together with my wife, and she is my financier, we have developed the following system.
During the year my wife kept track of expenses and, thanks to this, we found out how much money per month we need for a comfortable life. We calculated our obligatory expenses (food, utilities, transport, mobile communications, Internet and other) and decided to create a reserve fund in case of a drop in income, the size of which is 3 monthly budget.
Every time I receive income, I immediately send 20-30% of this amount to the reserve fund. 20% - if the amount of income is up to 10,000 rubles and 30% - if higher. This applies to any sums, even if I earned 500 rubles (it also happens), I immediately send 100 rubles to the reserve fund.
When the reserve fund is full, I send the surplus to the bank deposit. Why exactly the deposit, and not just keep it under the pillow?
Storing under the pillow is very dangerous. It's simple, there is a high probability of spending this money, as it is easily accessible. Therefore, a bank deposit is the best way out. So there is less temptation to spend your savings, moreover, interest is charged on them, and this is some kind of no, but still income.
The reserve fund allows me not to worry if I am temporarily without income or an emergency occurs situations (I will tell you about one such story later), and the contribution helps to save money for construction at home.
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Now back to the story, why it is so important to have a reserve fund. Recently on Instagram, I told how my car suddenly broke down. And she broke down at the most inopportune moment.
This month we spent a lot on furnishing a children's bedroom, bought a wardrobe, a bed, shelves, and exhausted our entire budget. And now, literally the next day, a car breaks down. And since we live outside the city, a car is not a luxury, but an absolute necessity.
The breakdown turned out to be significant, in the workshop they counted me more than 40,000 rubles for repairs. The amount is rather big, and if it were not for the reserve fund, you would have to ask for a loan or abandon the car for a while. And I just took advantage of the deferred money.
Especially to make up for this waste, I temporarily increased my contribution to my reserve fund to 30% of all income. Once I close the hole, I'll go back to regular replenishment. Now such a fund is very easy to create by opening a savings account and replenish it through a mobile application, for example, in the ICB.
Also, the reserve fund saved me during the recent quarantine, when, due to the pandemic, many customers decided to postpone advertising and my income dropped dramatically. Now the situation has already stabilized, and my fund is gradually replenishing. It's time to take stock.
Let's recap my financial management tips in a nutshell:
- calculate your monthly expenses (mandatory and optional), so you will understand how much money you need for life, and what, if necessary, you can refuse
- create a reserve fund, save at least 10-15% from each income. In case of unforeseen expenses, the fund will help you
- use savings accounts and bank deposits to keep money. It is a little more difficult to withdraw money from them than from a card or "from under the pillow"