HOW TO SAVE (part 1)

First, You need something to put your savings into. For me, I have bank accounts (yes.. plural), Coinboxes and wallets.

-          WALLET:

o   First is my Personal wallet – I place here my food allowance for the day and extra money for personal stuffs I wanna buy, groceries, etc.

o   Coin purse – I place here extra coins and my transport fare allowance for the day.

o   Saving wallet – this wallet is where I keep the money that I have to deposit in my bank accounts (Savings or Investments) & where I put the money for paying bills (Philhealth, Pag-ibig, Insurance, Debt, etc.).

Every time I get my allowance/money for the week (Usually Sundays, I start to organize my budget by separating the amount needed for each bill, saving account, daily allowance and place it in their respective wallets. I use post-its to keep the money organized)

-          COIN BOXES:

o   I have this square container (Tupperware) where I keep all the coins at the end of every day. I make sure to empty my coin purse at night and get the amount I need for my daily fare (plus some extra coins) in the morning before leaving.

As much as possible, spend first the one peso coins and keep the Php5 or Php10 coins in the coin box. Sometimes, I can save up to Php100 worth of coins at the end of the week and use it to reward myself for budgeting wisely. Or if not, I use it to pay any liabilities I have.

-          SAVINGS ACCOUNTS:

My friend laughed at me after knowing I had 4 accounts in 4 different banks. Some even only have the “minimum amount” requirement kasi I admit, I love shopping online, I love staying at coffee shops and gala. But now I’m telling you that having these accounts are effective for me because slowly, I’m able to save.

o   Deposit Account – First I have is a BPI Easy savers account. It was my first bank account with no minimum balance. Most of you think it is a good idea because it is easy to maintain (that was I thought when I opened up the account), but in the long run, I realized it was not. Every time I inquire my balance, I get charged Php5 and Php10 for withdrawals. The interest rate is not even high enough to balance the amount I am charged of. In short, hindi talaga ako nakakapagsave.

After 4 years (nang mamulat ako sa realidad na wala akong pera to get me started after college), I decided to open an account (Syempre with BPI padin) I chose BPI Family Savings Bank’s Regular Savings Account (1k minimum) 0.50% interest rate and no charges for withdrawals.

Why BPI?

§  Because I can deposit real-time thru their machines, mas madali kong naipapasok ang ipon ko for the week

§  Depositing money over the counter is free. Plus their BEA machines is convenient (you just have to input in the computer what you want to do (e.g. deposit, pay for bills), the account number, amount and it will give you a queue number.

This ATM Account is the primary account I use, I save money in here and withdraw it anytime I need it. Di ako nakakaipon dito to be honest kasi there are lots of expenses and madalas short ako. This serves as my reminder na “Stop buying stuffs you WANT kasi minimum balance na ang account mo!”. At leaset, I get to limit myself pati hindi ko naiisip umutang kasi I know wala akong maipangbabayad.

About my Easy savers account, it is still active today. (5pesos lang yung laman to be honest) I kept it kasi dun dinedeposit yung freelance earnings ko. I seldom use it though.

o   Investment Account – My investment account is BDO ATM Debit Savings (2k minimum). This account is primarily for the purpose of Investing money and actually saving up. I’ve been studying UITFs for months now by reading about them and BDO is one of the leading bank to get started with investing because of their good performance.

Why BDO?

§  Easy Investment Plan – This program lets you invest in their UITFs with starting amount of 1 thousand pesos per month. I subscribed in this program and chose their UITF Balanced Fund to try out investing money. I chose the minimum amount to save kasi wala naman akong source of income but my allowance. So every month, I am push myself to save one thousand and BDO automatically debits it in my account and invest it. I can track my Investments Online thru their online banking facility.

§  Depositing in BDO is free for your home branch area (there are 4 branches in our city and 3 of it is near our home) I always choose the branch with the least number of clients so I get to deposit fast.

§  BDO is open until 6pm (I can still go their straight from school to deposit) and they are open even in SATURDAYS!

§  Their UITFs (from Money Market to Equity) are among the best performing UITFs in the country.

o   Emergency Savings Account – Here I have the money that I intend to save in the long run. It is a passbook savings account because seeing the savings I have in the passbook motivates me to save more. Bawal iwithdraw unless super duper emergency. I have the Security Build-up savings account (5k minimum)

Why Security Bank?

§  Some branches are open until 5pm (I can still go their straight from school to deposit) and they are open even in SATURDAYS!

§  Easy to open an account ONLINE through their website. They even offered to visit me in my HOME to deliver my card and passbook. But I declined and told them that I will just visit their branch. The transaction was very fast, my Debit Mastercard was released immediately (around 20 minutes or less compared when I opened up an account in BDO that took an hour…Plus my BDO card was only released after 2 weeks after account opening)

§  They have variety of savings accounts offered. I first wanted the “Money Builder” where you could get bonus interests (up to 1%, comparing that to regular banks with 0.10-0.25% p.a.). These accounts are designed for you to limit your withdrawals which is helpful para makapag-save ka talaga.

§  UITFs!!! Their Equity Fund Investments are among the best performing in the country lately. 3 out of 4 of their Aggressive Funds ranked in the top 10 according to uitf.ph site. Plus looking at their performance, marketing strategies, I could see that this bank would really perform great in the next few years.

§  Few customers. A friend told me that it is better to get a bank with few customers because you will be their priority. I agree because it only takes minutes for me to deposit in their branch compared to lining up in BPI’s over the counter. Plus I get to talk more to the bank tellers and ask for financial advices and inquire more about their products.

Having more than one account is effective for me because through this, I can save money. I am also learning and training myself to be responsible in my finances, yet balance the savings and enjoyment.