Since January 2018, i have stopped using my credit card totally. The only time i use my credit card is to pay my sister's tuition fee because its a big sum and i feel incredibly unsafe to be bringing that big amount. But apart from that, everything is budgeted, if i don't have cash, i won't spend it.
And to tell the truth, it is so liberating to see the credit card bill to go down to zero. I have never had any credit card debt before, i pay off everything at the end of the month, but it was still the same thing, i spend using credit card, and then at the end of the month, my income would go to pay my credit cards and other expenses and i am down to a few hundreds left. And the cycle continues.
Come the new year, and i decided to put on a spending freeze. Having a no spend January, and since then, my credit card is zero every month.
Just two months of doing that, i managed to saved up sinking funds, i got monthly spending allowances and best part is, i got RM3000 left over from my monthly income and i can put that all into my emergency and education fund!
Not to mention, the lack of stress and sense of peace that i have from being able to pay my bills and no debt and able to save.
I love it, and i will continue to do this!
A quick look at my rough expenses :
Phone bills (for family of 5): 600
Insurance (house and medical) : 550
House payments (two houses): 4700
Utilities (electricity, water and Internet) : 600
Total : 6450
Income excluding side hustle: 9450
Savings: 3000!
My side hustle usually gives me about 800 to 1600 per month. So i would use that as pocket money, pay for pet's food and other savings goal like holidays.
Yay to budgeting. Because lets be honest, nobody got rich by getting air miles points.
Thanks so much for reading. I really wanted to share this because i never thought i will be able to cut credit card off and really be able to use cash only.
I am on a low spend year, goal is to save up to 50k emergency fund by end of this year, i got 30k more to go!