Epilogue: This post has been sitting in my drafts for so long since 8th June 2020. A bit reluctant to share this personal achievement of mine but as I’m documenting my figuring(g)itout journey here, I think I should just publish this. Who knows if one day I’d be smiling to myself reading this knowing that I have hundreds of k sitting in my bank accounts. Lol
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I did it guys! I did it. I finally saved my first RM10,000!
This is a big achievement for me as I never managed to retain my savings this long before. I started in January 2020 and in 5 months on 24th May 2020, I hit my first RM10,000 ever!
Let’s hit rewind for a brief background.
January 2020
On 30th December 2019, I did My Spending Review of (Half of) 2019 and I was dumbfounded with my findings. It looked as if I had 20% savings from my income that year but that’s not actually the case. I ended up spending what I set aside. Aha!
So starting 2019, I was determined and hopeful. I didn’t put any exact figures for my emergency fund but I was aiming to have roughly RM10k. I kinda knew how – by tackling my main problem; my impulse and unnecessary purchases. So I decided to do a no-buy year.
February 2020
This was the month where I sat down and set aside all the little savings that I could scrape from the previous years and January 2020, and bundled them up in my Emergency Fund. I didn’t spend unnecessarily at all so I was happy to see the saved amount by the end of the month.
March 2020
The partial lockdown started on 18th March 2020. I started working from home and staying at my parents’ house. The pandemic was a blessing in disguise for some of us, me included, in a way that I got to spend time with my family.
April 2020
A whole month of staying at home really did wonder to my spendings! I didn’t have to spend on transportations, tolls, lunches, and eating out. At the expense of my parents, of course, they have to pay for me haha. But hey this month, I did belanja them more as well.
May 2020
I still continued working from home the whole month. It’s also puasa and Raya month and I started went out to get the family’s buka puasa food and went on one work trip, so that explains the transportation costs. And oh finally, my first Misc Wants of the month! Read more on my No-Buy May Update.
By the way, I managed to save 42% in May because we didn’t balik kampung. I’ve been saving a bit every month for Raya since January 2020 as I initially intended to treat my big family a bit. No Raya means the money that I’ve allocated for that got absorbed to Emergency Fund. This was actually one of the major factors that I managed to save so much within months.
Raya Day
The first day of Raya was the day I set aside my savings for the month and hooray I hit my first RM10k! Finally! And that’s how I celebrated Raya. Bergaya. Lol.
That’s my story! I’m over the moon right now, couldn’t believe I would be able to have a 5 figures savings. Not much but for someone like me, it’s a start. A huge start indeed.
Let’s continue figuringgitout and get to RM15,000, my emergency fund goal (for now).
Read more: Ways I Do (and Tried but Failed) to Fill Up My Emergency Fund
Wow!
I’m impressed with your journey.
I want to do like this too.
How do you start and maintain?
Hi! It started last year, I was feeling all down with my money situation. In June 2019, I started tracking my spending and only then I realised how much money I spent unnecessarily. So I went hardcore and decided to go on a no-buy / no-spend year for the whole 2020. Pheww not easy but I’m still here figuring it out 🙂