Welcome to my September 2020 net worth update!
The reason why I do net worth updates is to stay accountable with my finances. I publish my real numbers as it is with the mission to continue to bridge the financial literacy gap for Filipinos one content at a time.
I hope you enjoy today’s post.
September 2020
September 2020 went by too quickly, wasn’t it?
I can’t believe we are now in the last quarter of the year.
Not much happened to me in September except for my #newnormal of reporting to work on site. I also spent the last two weeks of the month with my eldest sister which I always count as a staycation.
I count September as a great month in terms of my productivity and personal growth. I did my journaling (Morning Pages), daily devotions and exercise more consistent than the past month. But it was an expensive month for me.
Because I live now with my parents and youngest sister, the budget for food exploded. In a month I had to shell out at least Php 4000 – Php 5000 for the meals. This is as much budget as I have pre-pandemic for transportation and food.
So, in the end the unexpected savings I had before is now gone.
I also had to go back budgeting again which I stopped since the pandemic happened because I don’t have any variable expenses. I am starting to get worried about the increase in my expenses since August 2020 and I feel like I will not achieve my goal of ending the year at Php 350K net worth.
But that’s alright.
The best thing for now is that we still get by month after month without getting into debt. Plus, I still haven’t touched my emergency fund. Hooray!
You can go to my personal blog for more inside story of what happened to my life for the month of May.
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September 2020 Blog Updates and Highlights
September 2020 was a busy month for me at work and so I haven’t had that much time spent in blogging. I also kept on procrastinating on the tasks that matter.
With the last quarter of the year happening I know I have to step up my game. Here are the tools that made me stay productive as I can blogging.
We’ve reached 420 followers on Instagram which is awesome.
We are now on the rode to 500 followers. A-MAZ-ING.
Thank you so much for the support.
Here are the posts I did in September 2020 in case you missed any:
Budget Categories: A Basic Guide for Beginners
11 Ways to Build an Emergency Fund from Scratch
Stay Productive while Quarantined at Home with Security Bank
You can still watch my recent videos on the SavingsPinay Facebook Page or IG TV.
September 2020 Blog Income Breakdown
I got my second $100 payout for the year! Yessss!!! So far I’ve earned $213.07 passive income blogging which is still far from my new year-end target of $300.
However, I did great in terms of other income sources in blogging. I did a webinar for a company and a sponsored post all in the month of September. The webinar payment will be made on or before October 15 so I still haven’t included it on the Extra Income Fund. I only got the Sponsored Post cleared.
From my Mid-Year Financial Review I mentioned how I plan to grow my income before 2020 ends?
- Continue saving every penny I can now that I’m working from home.
- Release paid eBook.
- Publish new YouTube videos so I can increase my watch time and hopefully get eligible in YouTube Adsense Program.
- Create and release an Email Course.
- Launch the One-on-One Coaching Program to public.
Make sure you are also listening to The SavingsPinay Podcast. We already have five episodes published. Listen on Spotify, iTunes or Google Podcast.
September 2020 Goals
I posted my 2020 goals not long ago and something I learned to be very effective in life is the power of measuring your progress. Excited to share with you how I’ve been moving in terms of my goals for 2020.
Financial Goals
End 2020 with Php 350,000 net worth
For 2020 I set a very ambitious goal of reaching Php 500,000 net worth. I was so positive about this goals since I already hit my Php 250,000 mark last year without any salary adjustment.
I knew this is such a challenging goal and quite unrealistic but I was confident that I will get a promotion given the performance I did for my new role in the company. Plus, I also planned to launch digital products that will help me earn more extra income to support this goal.
The promotion did happen but, so is the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because of the COVID-19 scare, the family decided it’s best for my parents (both in their 60s) to live in the province for good.
We had to support their basic needs plus shell out an amount that will the necessary financial things our parents will have to settle before moving out.
Another problem I had with the COVID-19 is how hard it is to budget and do net worth tracking. I am fortunate enough to work from home during this trying times, and although financially it is indeed a good month – I was also bleeding from groceries and utility bills.
Not to mention the amount of anxiety this whole situation has been giving us.
So far, this may not be possible anymore.
My new goal now is to just finish the year at Php 350,000 mark.
With the current living situation, it’ll be very difficult even to accomplish the new goal. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed more opportunities will open up especially with SavingsPinay. I hope to work with brands and companies for webinar talks more during this time.
Save Php 60,000 Emergency Fund
This goal has already been long standing and I’m proud to announce in this post that I am counting this as FINALLY DONE!!!
My bonus from work came and decided to go all in to close this goal for now. You all know how long I've tried to save up for a proper emergency fund. I might attempt for another Php 60,000 Emergency Fund goal next year but for now I will stop with this amount and up my investing game.
With the market still in its sale season, I really like to stay invested as much as I can. A long post about emergency fund and what to do when you already reached it is in progress, so please stay tuned for that.
Max-out Php 48,000 invested in Funds
This amount is based on 30% of my previous monthly salary as investable money. So far I am doing well with this goal and with my emergency fund done, I will have 10% additional investable money.
Do Spavings and Record It
I made a post about Spavings and how it works. Spavings is the perceived savings you get when you buy something on sale. The term is actually a play on words Spend and Save.
With spavings, you are encouraged to deliberately put that money saved as part of your savings.
A lot of times you encounter people who say they saved this amount of money for a 20% off deal, when in reality what they did was only to spend money because savings only accounts to money we actually SAVED.
The current spavings at the moment is still Php 1440.00. Since the COVID-19 situation began I haven’t had any spaving moment worth noting. The most of my expenses are on groceries which we do bi-monthly.
Do the 1% Money Saving Challenge
This is a saving challenge I decided to join in order to build my travel fund for my birthday getaway. However, due to the current situation travel will surely not happen this year. I am still keeping this goal in tact so I can have a working travel fund now.
Save on Commute – Sidecar
This year, I decided to give up sidecar (or pedicab) on my commute. One ride costs Php 8 and I do it twice, going to work and going home. I am saving Php 80 every work week which accounts to Php 320 savings in a month.
For some reason, it was a lot harder to commit to this goal than I thought it would be. And just like the Spavings, with me working from home for the last four months I don’t really spend any money on commute anymore. Thus, this goal is not as relevant for now.
Personal Goals
Get a promotion
I got my promotion last February 2020.
The waiting period seems too long (3 years) but in those time of unknown, He listens. He was always there.
Since the promotion began, I’ve been budgeting and living based on my previous salary. The major salary increase I got is what I’ve been using to provide monthly cash allowance to my parents during COVID-19 as mentioned above.
Overall, I am so grateful for the opportunity to be working in the field where I am passionate about, finance. And not to mention doing what I love to do – social media.
Read 20 Books
I made a goal to read 20 books this year and as of end of September I am on my 12th book. I also already laid down all the books that I’ll be reading for the rest of the year. Here they are.
Reading is such a great way to pass time productively. I’ve never been successful when it comes to reading challenges I join and I really want this year to be different.
In case you need book recommendations you may check out this post – 18 Must Read Books on Money, Business, Investing and Productivity.
Blog Goals
Launch SavingsPinay Podcast
I never thought I’ll be able to do achieve this goal since I’ve been putting off working on a podcast for so long now. I think I first talked about this in 2018 but have since made progress about this venture.
When the enhanced community quarantine got extended in April 2020, I made it a point to act maximize the work from home set up and act on this goal.
Finally, I got it done!
A lot of SavingsPinay readers have been sending this request over and I thought it would be nice for me to relive as well my dreams of becoming a DJ. Finally this big project is now done! You can now listen to the very first episode in Spotify or iTunes.
Blog 80 Times
I am too far from this goal already. I should be at 50 published posts already if I want this goal to be tagged us done. Sadly, I wasn’t as diligent and consistent when it comes to publishing posts. For now, I will change this goal to Blog 80 Times just to make it as realistic.
52 YouTube Videos
I really want to get back into YouTube especially now that I’ve been working from home and have this newfound time to do so. Sadly, I can’t seem to find the right time to film. I live in a noisy neighborhood and I’m too afraid to film and have the end video filled with noises. But, I will do my best to accomplish this goal. For now, I narrow this down to at least 20 YouTube Videos for the year.
Earn $400 on Google Adsense
I am below 50% mark for my goal of earning $400 on Google Adsense. I know I will never achieve this goal anymore so I am setting it to $300 tops.
Fun Goal
Hike
Because of the pandemic this will definitely not happen this 2020. I so miss the feeling of hiking.
My September 2020 Net Worth Update
Last month, my Emergency Fund has been fully-funded. That’s after several years of saving up.
However, I had to take out all of my extra income money to fund my father’s surgery. It was done in the second week of September and my father is recovering well. I was about to take a financial assistance loan in the office but decided to just use the money I have saved from side hustles instead.
Of course I am still hopeful that 2020 will be a better year. As for me, I choose to stay invested no matter what. I just follow my investment strategy, Peso-Cost Average since I don't need the money any time soon.
Next Month’s Plan
The month of October is uneventful so far. My biggest concern is budgeting my money for the expenses at home. All of my money goals from last month were failures. I wasn’t able to open a new passbook account, the ebook has yet to be released and the Passion Project X wasn’t launched.
I think September 2020 was spent really on work-related tasks which is unusual of me because I used to still have time on my schedule to do tasks related to blogging and/or side hustling. I’ll surely change next month. I only have three full months to work on my goals.
For October 2020 I set some new goals and kind of moved on from my consecutive fails. I want to set my quarter 4 goals and action plans. Really get to list down what should happen to finish the year (still) strong!
I also need to budget again.
As I mentioned, I stopped budgeting the moment the pandemic happened because my variable expenses stopped as well. With my fixed expenses automatically deducted on my payroll account, I didn’t want an added task on my hand.
However, now that I’m living with my parents there are discretionary expenses that’s been happening and I wanted to make sure I don’t over spend. I also want to FINALLY release the last five episodes from the SavingsPinay Podcast Season 1.
I also know I’ve been mentioning digital launches month after month but nothing’s happening. My bad. But I promise this time the paid templates will be available.
The plan is to launch a Budget Template based on the 50-20-30 Rule of Budgeting, a Monthly Income and Bill Payment Tracker and a Financial Planning Worksheet.
Last Month’s Goal:
Transfer Emergency Fund to a Passbook Account – FAILED
Release Paid Ebook – FAILED
Launch Passion Project X – FAILED
Money Goals this Month:
Set Quarter 4 Goals + Action Plans
Budget again!
Release all pending SavingsPinay Podcast S1 episodes
Launch Paid Templates
Final Notes from SavingsPinay
Currently, I am treasuring the time I spend with my parents after so many years that we were not living in one home. Having them 24 hours of each day is surely different but something I’ve been holding dearly. The COVID-19 pandemic really changed our way of life. Stay safe and stay healthy.
That’s it for September 2020.
How’s your finances for September 2020?