#TheBudgetChallenge: The Way I have Budgeted my Money and the Reasons Why I am not scared to Spend | Money well Budgeted and Spent during my Two-day Seminar in Tagbilaran City, Bohol

Good day Steemians! I already miss blogging. I have been quiet for about two consecutive days because of the event that I have attended last Saturday and Sunday in compliance with the Continuing Professional Development for all licensed teacher and or even for other professionals. However, that is not my main point of making this blog.

here to read the guidelines of the competition. I am a little bit hesitant in participating the challenge due to the following analogy:I have read the post of @smaeunabs about her challenge in making budget. You may click

1. No class: No salary
2. No salary: No money
3. No money: Nothing to budget

I have consulted sheila about this and she told me to share the previous daily budget that I had but I wasn't able to track my daily budgets.

Budgeting is not actually new to me but I usually do 15 day period budgetting and not daily. That could somehow be the reason why I hesitate to participate because I really wanted to be honest with all the data that I will be sharing. In addition, I want it new and realistic.

Agenda for my participation

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I really wanted to participate because of the following agenda:

Share the importance of Savings

I always teach my 6th grade pupils to include a standard of 20% for savings from their daily or monthly allowances and to let them realize the beauty of savings I let them do projection of how much they can earn for 4 years and beyond. We usually end up having P8,000 (160 USD) or more as projected savings in a year.

I cannot teach without doing it. I also practiced having the standard of 20% savings and even exceed that standard. I projected to have P5,000 (100 USD) every month and P15,000 (300 USD) for 3 months since I just have started last January.

If I will continue it starting June of this year until March of next year, I can be able to gain P50,000 (1,000 USD) for 10 month period. See? That was the beauty of looking for the result. You'll see the bigger picture of doing small things.

Share the importance of having long term vision

The best way for you to maintain your consistency in budgeting and savings is to look deeply for your main reasons in doing so. If you tell yourself that you will do it to save yourself each single day then, You may fail in having a consistent budgetting and savings.

Share the importance of Priorities

Let me boil down to the idea of priorities for you to further ease your budgeting. In order to maintain the consistency of dividing your income, you must rank possible expenses according to its importance.

Prioritize those things you NEED and the things you are obliged to pay until you can further divide the remaining amount to another things.

The opportunity for me to participate

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As what I have mentioned, I don't have a salary for two months. So how can I be able to participate with this. Let me further explain it with a short story.

It was on the first week of April that I have requested for a Cash Advance from our institution. This will serve as our financial assistance for the seminar that we will be attending in Tagbilaran, Bohol. I have initiated this not only for my own welfare but also for the rest of the teachers in our department. In deeper sense, this is also for the welfare of our school and of our students.

It was 2 days prior to the event when I have received a message that our request was not yet processed by the HR staffs. That was really awful because I still need to pay for our registration and book for transportation. They've assured to give us the money tomorrow, which is one day before the event.

Fast forward, we were able to get the money at around one in the afternoon of April 27. The pressure is on right now. We still need to go to an agency or Pier 1 to book our voyage and pay the registration fee through Palawan Pawnshop!.

We were able to do the process at exactly 5:15 in my clock. And Viola! We're good to go.

Then, I have seen the opportunity to track my expenses for two days. Starting from April 28 to 29, 2018.

You see me travelling with educational purpose because of my other goals which I prioritize the most. Since, I still have to finish those goals, you can rarely see travel blogs in my posts but I know sooner, I can do it in God's time.

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Now, let me start the #budgetchallenge.

_{Figure 1 Total Money of @morken}

The first step in budgeting is to know how much money you have and how much money you need to add to lessen the possibility of getting short with your budget.

As what you can see in Figure 1, I have 2 sources of my budget. 93.8% of the budget comes from the Cash Advance that I have requested which amounts to P 7,500 (150 USD) while the remaining 6.3% comes from my allowance which amounts to P 500 (10 USD). This "allowance" came from my savings which I need to return if I still have some excess money.

In summation, I do have P 8,000 (160 USD) as my budget for the two-day seminar in Bohol.

After knowing my cash on hand, I properly distributed/ allocated my money to my possible expenses. In my case, I have started budgeting the day prior to the event.

_{Figure 2 Money Distribution: Budgetting}

The table shows my possible expenses for the two-day seminar in Bohol. The highest percentage was allocated for Self-Development or Seminar Registration with P 3,000.00 (60 USD), followed by the Accomodation of P 1,500.00 (30 USD), and P 3,000.000 (60 USD) which were equally distributed for Transportation, Food, and Other Expenses.

First Day: April 28, 2018

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_{Figure 3 Expenses for April 28, 2018}

Figure 3 shows the tabulated data of my expenses last April 28, 2018. The highest expenditure goes to Self-Development with 63.8% while the lowest was allocated for Gifts with 3.1% of the total distribution.

To further explain the whole expenses, I will show you a list below.

_{Figure 4 List of Expenses last April 28, 2018}

Let me discuss it thoroughly by explaining the expenses according to its category.

Self-Development

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This composed the 63.8% of the total expenses. This is mainly for the two day seminar registration fees amounting to P 3,000 (60 USD) with an additional fee of P 42.00 (0.84 USD) as interest of Palawan Pawnshop, money transfer company with a total of P 3, 042.00.

Transportation

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In the given list, you'll see 3 different expenses for transportation which gets the 22.5% distribution.

• Oceanjet Transportation (Voyage fare)
• Terminal Fees (Cebu Port and Bohol Port)
• Bohol Transportation Fees

I have paid the exact amount of P 1, 000.00 (back and forth) for the voyage fare with the following itinerary.

April 28, 2018
• departure (from Cebu) at 5:10 a.m.
• arrival (to Bohol) at 7:10 a.m.

April 29, 2018
• departure (from Bohol) at 6:30 p.m.
• arrival (to Cebu) at 8:30 p.m.

The following are the breakdown of the terminal fees:

• Terminal Fee in Cebu Port: P 25.00 (0.5 USD)
• Terminal Fee in Bohol Port: P 20.00 (0.4 USD)

The total amount for the Transportation related fees went up to P 1, 075.00 (21.5 USD).

Food

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We first stop at the local fast food resto for us to have breakfast. We tried to seek for cheaper stores but we haven't found any. We are in a hurry because we only have an hour for the seminar. Lunch were provided by the seminar facilitators that as inclusion of the registration fee. We've found a near barbeque station in the evening for our dinner.

These are my expenses for both breakfast and dinner.

• Dinner: 2 hanging rice for P 10.00, 1 chicken thigh for P 70.00 and 1 bottled water for P 20.00, a sum of P 100.00 (2 USD).• Breakfast: C1 @Jollibee (Rice with chicken) amounting to P 98.00 (1.96 USD).

I realized that in Tagbilaran Bohol, you can rarely see stores which offers cheaper meals or maybe we just lack familiarization of the place.

My expenses for Food got the 4.3% of the total budget with a total amount of P 203.00 (4.06 USD).

Pension House Rental (Others)

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We stayed at an accomodating pension house which is about 100 meters away from the venue of the seminar. The air-conditioned economy type room is apparelled with 5 double deck bedrooms which can accomodate 10 people. It also has 2 toilets and a closet for your things.

What's best about that pension house is that, we only spent P 300.00 (6 USD) for our one night stay. This gets the 6.3% of the budget allocation.

Gift as pasalubong

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It has been our culture as Filipinos to bring pasalubong to our families if we went from other places. We usually buy those products which were locally made by that place.

Since, Bohol is already well-known of their Kalamay products, I didn't missed out the chance of buying some for my family.

I bought 4 Kalamay for P 150.00 (3 USD) which gets the 3.1% of the budget allocation.

Summary for April 28, 2018

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_{Figure 5 Total Amount of Budget with the Total Amount of Expenses on April 28, 2018}

In summation, I have spent P 4,770.00 (95.4 USD) for the first day of the Seminar which left me with P 3, 230.00 (64.6 USD) in my pocket.

Second Day: April 29, 2018

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_{Figure 6 Expenses for April 29, 2018}

The above table shows the tabulated expenses of my April 29, 2018 budget. To further explain this one, I will start by stating the expenses from the budget with least percentage allocation to the greatest. Followed with the list of expenses as supporting file.

_{Figure 7 List of Expenses last April 29, 2018}

Transportation

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Our departure from Tagbilaran, Bohol to Cebu City will be at exactly 6:30 in the evening. We finished the seminar at exactly 5 in the afternoon for us to catch up for our voyage and to prevent from future traffic congestion in the high way.

From the venue of the seminar to Bohol Port, we ride a tricycle which costs P 25.00 (0.5 USD).

We disembarked safely at exactly 9 in the evening. Yes, we arrived late at the Cebu Port.

From the Cebu Port we have two options for the transportation.

1. Walk for about more than a hundred meter from the port to wait for a jeepney which will transport us to Mandaue City.
2. Ride a cab to transport us to Lapu-Lapu City.

All of us were weary and hungry and we don't have the energy to do the usual way of transporting. In fact, it's no longer safe outside the port with that time. We don't want to take the risk so, we decided to book a cab using Grab Application and at about 7 mins we were able to meet our driver. This cost me P 85.00 (1.7 USD).

From the jeepney stop in Pajo, Lapu-Lapu City I rode a jeepney to transport me to The Outlets Terminal with P 7.00 (0.14 USD). From the Outlets Terminal, I rode a tricycle to transport me to our district which costs P 8.00 (0.16 USD)

In total, I was able to spend P 125.00 (2.5 USD) for my transportation which gets the 5.5% of the distribution.

Food

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I woke up at 4 a.m. last April 29 though I have slept at around 12 midnight because of our Second Open Discussion in Teenvestors Discord Channel. We were all set to eat our breakfast at exactly 5:30 in the morning. Since the cook in the Pension house where we were staying is on leave on that day because it is Sunday, we walked and headed to a nearest store.

Luckily, we found McDonalds. Though, it's not an ideal store for getting cheaper meals, we don't have any choice to grab the opportunity. It cost me P 102.00 (2.04 USD) which includes, 1 rice, 1 chicken, 1 frice and juice drink.

For our dinner, I only bought hot water from the stall in Bohol Port which costs P 10.00 (0.2 USD). The water is intended for the cup noodles bought by my friend @kim24. This will serve as our dinner for the night. I also bought 2 water bottles for my own consumption while having the dinner and while I am aboard which costs P 27.00 per bottle, that sums P 54.00 (1.08 USD) for the 2 bottles.

For the food expenditures, I have spent a total of P 166.00 (3.32 USD) which is 7.2% of the total expenses.

Debt

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Technically, I still do have an extra money amounting to P 2, 939.00 (58.78 USD) which is really good.

If you can still recall, I have added P 500.00 (10 USD) in my budget from my savings and because of the excess money, I was able to return it in immediately. I also added P 1,500.00 (30 USD) in my savings. These composed the 87.3% of the budget ditribution.

Summary for April 29, 2018

_{Figure 8 April 29 Total Expenditure}

I have spent P 2, 291.00 (45.94 USD) for my second day which means,

_{Figure 9 Difference}

Currently, I still have P 939.00 (18.78 USD) in my pocket. This will now be used in my future expenses or in our household consumtion.

Assessment

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_{Figure 10 The total expenditure from April 28 to April 29, 2018}

I have spent P 7, 061.00 (141.22 USD) from my P 8,000.00 (160 USD) budget with the difference amounting to P 939.00 (18.78 USD). This made me assess that I was able to properly spent my budget during my two-day stay in Bohol for our seminar.

Final Thoughts

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Let us not forget to properly differentiate budgeting from spending. They are two mainly different activities in handling our money.

Budgeting is done before spending while spending is done after budgeting. Budget wisely for you to spend smartly.

Sometimes, we're scared to spend without knowing that we just forget to properly budget. Don't be scared to spend as long as you have properly allocated your money to appropriate things, you'll handle your money well.

Please don't forget to always include a 20% or more of savings in your budget whatever it takes. In the end, you yourself or your family will benefit from that savings.

You may also follow @smaeunabs for financial related articles. You may also participate in this contest for you to assess how far you have gone in handling your money.

To a more fruitful steeming!

Have a nice day everyone!

Lovelots,