Hello hello and welcome back to my monthly 'Money Diaries' where I need to be accountable for everything that I have done right and wrong in my personal finance. *cough* I have good and not so good news in February - the month of Chinese New Year, Valentine's day and my significant other' birth month. It's the month that I was expecting for huge spending and so much more.
Every Chinese New Year, we will always go back to the mister's hometown and celebrate with his family there. Ever since we got married, which is last year, we have concluded that we need at least RM1K for angpao(s) or red packet distribution amongst family members. I have pre-set the amount, each varies depending on status and age. We also always give an extra for the close family members such as my parent in laws, sister in laws and of course the nephew and nieces.
For 2021, we did actually plan to go back for a week during the holiday. Unfortunately, the mister has become a close contact with his colleague who's tested positive for Covid-19 and have to undergo 10 days quarantine. Plus, the big family at hometown decided to withhold any big celebration as it is not allowed by SOP. So, we pretty much save up 1K (this will be save for next year then!)
Alright next, remember that I have decided to refill back my emergency fund? Yeap, I finally did it last month. I was supposed to be able to complete it by March or April but I have received the KWSP interim RM1K and I have put it in the emergency fund. Yay! Now that my emergency fund is completed, I can finally start to tackle my debts one by one. Wish me luck!
Here's to summarize my February's yay and nay(s):
The YAY of February!
- Finally hitting the 2K amount of emergency fund
- Invested in another gold purchases - the price hit very low last month due to CNY promo, so I took a chance hehe
- I've spend lesser than I thought I would be for CNY celebration, Valentine's day and the husband's birthday celebration - all thanks to 10 days quarantines!
- Increased of side income by 15% - I took extra works in February and am so glad!
The NAY of February!
- By the title, you already know that I have spend more than RM500 for The Sims games that I have purchased online via Origin. I loved my the sims games and previously I just downloaded the pirated copy online. Since I want it on my Macbook as well, I decided to splurge a little. *oops*
- We went out for grocery shopping every week and cost us about RM100 or more at a time - I would really love to cut down this amount to less than RM100 and try out how much I can save using grocery delivery.
- My monthly subscription(s) is starting to burdened me - not exactly to the point that I don't have money to pay it but I would love to terminate some of it. I need to cut where's necessary - let me do this in March!