Manage Your Cash Flow

Here's some suggestion on how you can manage your own cash flow condition:

1. You will need to track your expenses for about 3 months to find out exactly what's your expenses per month so that you can find out if you can cut down your expenses. Keep 1 month worth of expenses in cash in a separate spending account just for spending every month and stick to that budget.
2. You need to pay yourself first and put aside at least 20% of your income per month to a separate savings account towards achieving financial freedom. Increase this percentage whenever possible.
3. Set aside about 8-10% to invest in your own education so that you can improve your income actively or passively.
4. Donate about 5-10% of your income to any charity you like, such as world vision, red cross etc, so that you share your wealth with the universe, as sharing will help you achieve more!
5. Set aside 5-10% of your income towards insurance of any form. Try not to stretch yourself too much on this and that's why I prefer to buy term insurance rather than any other form of insurance. This is to ensure that you are well protected should anything happen.
6. Set aside about 5-10% as for long term spending on bigger items, e.g. tour, car, big plasma tv, laptop, etc
7. Spend  about 5-10% of your income to pamper yourself, use this to splurge on things that you love and is fun, spa package, 5 star hotel stay, high class dinner etc. Make yourself happy. This it to keep you motivated in life and recharge your energy.
8. Keep your required expenses to < 40% of your income.

Here are some tools I've created that you may want to use to help in the management of your cash flow:

• Track your Networth - This excel file helps you track your current networth so that you can understand more about your current financial condition and find out exactly how long can your current savings last you.
• Expense Tracker - This excel file helps you track your expenses on a daily basis. You'll need to add in the monthly part yourself by copying the current worksheet to a new month. But with this tool, you'll be able to find out exactly where does your money goes to so that you know where you can cut down your expenses.