Grocery shopping

Once you have a family, your paycheck becomes important because you now have DEPENDENTS.

Some of us already support our parents when we are single. Some of us don’t need to. Some of us have to support both parents AND our own children.

No matter what your circumstances, what is important is that your source of earned income becomes a lifeline to provide the standard of living for you AND your loved ones.

How to feed more mouths with the same income

It’s difficult to expand income in times of recession. Job security becomes important when retrenchments besides wage freezes or even cuts are common. So how do you go about feeding more mouths with the same income?

Making your money stretch requires creativity, discipline and an awareness of where your money is going. I’ve found out that the following techiques have worked for me in helping me stretch my paycheck for the 3 mouths I have to feed in my household.

1.  Track your cash flows

I have to thank the authors of “Your Money or Your Life” — Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin from writing their life changing book. Since tracking my expenses daily for the past 6 months or so, I’ve discovered where my life energy is flowing out each day, dollar by dollar, cent by cent.

It’s amazing to know how much you exactly spend which is why your savings is the amount that you see left over (if any) in a month.

If you haven’t already started, you should seriously think about doing this because only when you are conscious of where you spent your money that you will make a conscious effort to cut spending on areas that is not aligned to your life goals and that gives you satisfaction and fulfilment.

2.  Consolidate expenses

Consolidating expenses means to save money by pooling resources. Instead of washing 1 cup or 1 spoon, consider batching them up to wash just after each meal time. This helps to save water and dishwashing liquid.

Other ways include making sure the washing machine is full before running or boiling water at one go with the electric kettle full.

I have found that cooking for my family is a great expense saver because for the same amount I would pay for 3 packets of rice for my family, I can cook a nutritious meal with fresh ingredients and is healthy. Rice + steamed fish or grilled meat with stir-fry vegetables is relatively easy to prepare once you get the hang of cooking. All my cooking skills were picked up from trial and error plus watching Floyd and Nigella’s cooking shows on television.

3.  Save, save and save!

Making a conscious effort to save money every month is important. While our CPF contributions is a form of savings, the reality is that most of the ordinary account balances go towards funding our homes. So when we retire, we will tend to be cash poor but asset rich. Unless we monetise our homes, we would have to create other forms of retirement savings using leftover savings after feeding the mouths in our families.

I’ve eyed the Samsung Omnia and before that the Nokia E71 PDA phones for quite some time. Because of the current recession, I’ve decided to push my Treo 650 to the limit and only get a new phone when it conks out by itself. I’ve struggled over this but the recession has made me more conscious of the need to practice what I preach and to be frugal.

4. Finding other sources of income

My posts on blog monetisation show that it is possible but difficult to earn additional sources of income from blogging and related online activities. So far, my efforts allow me to learn more about web 2.0 technologies but also allow me to test out ways that work and ways that don’t work.

It’s been two over years and the money is small but the feeling is great that some of my expenses can be covered by my blogging. Of course, it’s riskier and easier (in some ways) to make money from the stock market but it involves huge risks. Sometimes you risk thousands just to earn a hundred or less if you are trading. If you are investing, there is still risks of capital losses and dividends are not guaranteed. In this low interest rate regime, some of the dividends are yielding 5-8% but capital losses on paper could be up to 50%!

How many mouths are you feeding

Share with Panzer how many mouths you are feeding and what are some ways you are doing to expand your income sources?

Be well and prosper.