Here are my monthly financials for September 2021.
It is good to keep track and review your monthly financials so you can be in control of your finances.
Having a fixed income and knowing my expenses will not exceed my budget allowed me to not track my expenses before I left my job. I did not feel a need to track my finances strictly as I know I can control my spending. I only tracked my investments diligently.
Since I will not have a fixed source of income soon, I decided to start tracking my financials starting from January 2021. Money will be tight so I need to be extra prudent. This also helps generate content for my website.
Top 3 Income Sources
Interest – S$206.40
This is made up of the coupon payments from Singapore Savings Bond and interest from Singlife.
Dividends – S$149.23
I received dividends from QAF and AIMS APAC.
Merch Sales – S$136.00
I received US$102.57 worth of commissions from selling merch on TeePublic and Redbubble. If you like to find out more about selling merch, you can look at an article I wrote here.
Top 3 Expense Sources
Allowance – S$643.00
This month I paid for my mother’s integrated shield plan from Great Eastern. This will only keep increasing every year. The premium increased even though we now have to fork out money for the co-payment. I expected the premium to decrease as we now have to do the co-payment but instead, there is an increase in the premiums. The reason given by my insurance agent is that although the existence of co-payment will technically decrease premiums, the amount of coverage has increased.
Do we really need the integrated shield plans ever since there is no more 100% coverage? The hospital bills are already subsidized plus we still have MediShield Life and Medisave. Should we cut out private insurance providers and let the government run the health insurance program? If you guys have any thoughts on this, please let me know.
Investment – S$200
S$200 of it is my monthly DCA into STI ETF using POSB Invest-saver.
Health – S$90.95
This is for visiting a polyclinic.
Bonus – Waiver Of Credit Card Annual Fee
I don’t spend a lot on my credit card so every September when I see the annual fee charges on the bill, I am afraid that I am unable to waive the annual fees. I spend on average about S$150 a month on my credit card and I have never had a late payment. There was a time I even accidentally paid my bill twice lol.
If I had to cancel my credit card to avoid paying for my annual fee, it will be difficult for me to apply for a new card as I don’t have a salary.
Luckily, this year the annual fee waiver proceeded without any problems. I applied for a fee waiver at 8:30 am on the same day the annual fee appeared on my bill (I check my bank and credit card transactions every day ever since some asshole stole my wallet and withdrew S$1,000 from my bank). The annual fee waiver got approved quickly at 9:28 am the same day.
Money Manager App
I am using an app called Money Manager to track my income and expenses. It is a free tool available on mobile available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
As far as I know, the data collected from the app is for tracking the ads you view and interact with on the app.
Please check out their privacy policy on what information they collect and what is it used for.
Personally, the value this app brings to me outweighs the value of the information I provide to them.
Comment and let me know what you think about tracking your finances.
