In today’s post I will share with you what’s inside my money map for 2021 or how I organize my finances as a whole.

This post is an update from the previous post I made here.

A money map is basically a visual representation of where your money goes. You can use apps to create shapes that would best represent the movement of your money. You can also simply organize everything on a Word, PowerPoint or Excel File.

Doing your own Money Map will help you assess the movement of your money from the moment it gets to your account to where it is headed.

The end goal of doing the Money Map is have a clearer picture on where your current money goes.

I believe organization plays a big role in attaining financial freedom. Knowing which part of your income goes to savings, investments or expenses is important.

Related Posts:

2020 Side Hustle Report

2021 Goals

13 Things I Do to Improve My Finances

Be part of the SavingsPinay Email List

My Current Money Situation 2021

In this post

The last time I posted how I organize my finances was 2018. My financial situation was way different from then.

Back then, I’m part of the SINKs – Single Income, No Kids. But at that time, I had no monthly financial responsibility to my parents and I wasn’t paying for the monthly bills alone. I had my sister to share the bills with.

Now my current money situation is different.

I am still part of the SINKs but I now give monthly allowance to my parents. Since the pandemic happened we encouraged them to step back on their sari-sari store business. Thus, we (their children) had to support them financially.

Also now I’m the one paying the monthly utility bills at home alone as my sister who loved with me before moved out late last year.

But, the good news was I also experienced a career breakthrough. In 2019, I got shifted to the role that I really love – digital marketing. And in 2020 before the Enhanced Community Quarantine began, I got promoted. My salary increased after three long years of patiently waiting.

So in a nutshell, my current money situation goes like this:

I am 27 year old, single professional
I have an 8-5pm job
I am currently earning side hustle income through blogging and selling my services
I have a term life insurance and a working emergency fund in place
I have a medical insurance together with my parents covered by my company
I do save and invest 30% of my monthly income
I currently don’t have credit card debt or any loan

My Money Map 2021

List of Bank and Credit Card Accounts

4 regular bank accounts (1 payroll account, 3 regular savings account)
1 high-yield savings account where I keep my future travel fund.
1 credit card account which I use to pay mostly all blog-related expenses (hosting, domain, email provider, etc.)

Income

I have two sources of income – salary from my day job and side hustle income from my blog and services.

Let’s cover the salary first.

Before the pandemic began, I got promoted and had major salary increase. This helped me so much navigate now that I have fixed financial responsibilities such as parents’ allowance and additional utility bills.

From my salary I get majority of what I pay for my expenses. Before I divide my salary into three – spending, savings, and investments, I make sure I already gave my tithes.

I’ve shared about tithing here.

If my salary is 100%

10% goes to tithes

55% to expenses

35% to savings and investments

Expenses

Utility bills – Budget for all utilities in the house from water, electricity, and internet.

Food and Transportation – Lunch and transportation allowance when I report to work every other week.

Parents’ allowance – Help for grocery or food at home

Other recurring expenses – Any other expenses I’ll have to pay including subscriptions, etc.

Savings

Emergency Fund – I keep this in one of the savings account I have. This is currently fully funded but I plan to top-up on this using any bonus I’ll receive at work.

Sinking Funds – I shared about what sinking fund is here and if you want to know all of the personal sinking funds I’ve been saving up for you can check out this post.

High-Yield Savings Account – I have a high-yield savings account to keep the money I saved up by doing the 1% money challenge. It’s meant as a future travel fund when this pandemic is over.

Investments

Equity Fund – This fund is invested heavily on blue chip stocks and is actively-managed. The holdings in this fund may change from time to time depending on the strategy of the fund manager.

Index Fund – This fund is invested on consumer products (food and beverage stocks, retail, entertainment, consumer goods, etc.) and is passively-managed. The holdings in this fund only tracks the record of its benchmark.

Stocks – I only hold one stock, an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) which invests in the whole PSEi composite.

Side Hustle

For the money I get on my side hustles I gather them all on a separate bank account and treat them as an Opportunity Fund.

It has been a classic financial concept to build an emergency fund. You save 3 to 6 times worth of your monthly expenses and reserve it for “emergencies”.

Your emergency fund gives you a buffer money in case you lose your job today, met an accident or unexpected death in the family happens.

But sometimes life will open opportunities to us that can cost money.

Opportunities like a seat sale to your dream destination, a pre-sale house and lot within your budget, a new investment vehicle or even a new business idea.

That’s exactly what I mean by opportunity fund.

My side hustle income provides me means for opportunities I can’t do with just my salary alone. It helped me accomplish the following:

Boost my savings

Increase my investments

Have enough capital for a possible business venture or passion project

Pay-off debt (credit card)

Extra money for shopping, paying bills or vacation

I also get my recurring blog expenses from my side hustle income. You can check out my 2020 Side Hustle Income Report on the breakdown on what I spend in maintaining both SavingsPinay.ph and my personal blog, IzzaGlinoFull.com.

Where do I get my side hustle income?

Currently, I do earn minimum amount from the following:

Paid webinars
Sponsored posts
Graphic design and branding
Money Coaching
Google Adsense
Digital Products like The Budget Template

If you’re interested to get my services whether it be a paid webinar, sponsored post, graphic design and branding or money coaching, you can send me a message as well via email on izza@savingspinay.ph

I also use my side hustle income as a blessing fund should there my parents need something or if and then there’s an emergency within the family and I need to shell out money to help.

Summary

As part of the SINK I have a lot of freedom in terms of my finances. And I am grateful for that. I am blessed to do what I love to do as a job and my current pay is working fine for me.

Of course if I’ll be blessed to have another promotion in the near future that would be great. A salary increase would help me boost my savings and investments even more.

What ultimately helped me keep my cash flow positive are the following – I have no debts, I have an emergency fund, and I have my side hustle income. Without these there I don’t think I’ll have sanity over my finances.

My biggest hindrance is definitely financial discipline especially on my everyday choices. I have to make sure I’m following my budget, tracking my expenses, and living within my means.

How to Create Your Own Money Map

Step 1. Identify your income. Figure out where your money is coming in. Is it pure salary or do you other means to make extra income?

Step 2. Track your expenses. Where does your income go? What are the big buckets of your finances? Does it go to expenses, savings, and investments? Or you also pay off debt?

Step 3. Define everything with a flow chart. You can easily do this on Excel, PowerPoint or by drawing. The most important thing is you have a visual representation on what happens to your money.