Author: Kasumah
What comes to your mind when you hear the sentence above? Why do we have to manage finances well? Some of us are even somewhat unfamiliar with the issue of financial management even though in every level of life, money is the main source of exchange.
In this session, I had the opportunity representing Rumah Relawan Remaja (3R) to participate in the Financial Literacy Training which has focus on understanding about financial management. This activity organized by KamiKita which lasted for 3 meetings, namely on February 24, March 3 to 10. Actually, this training would takes longer time, however the problems are narrowed down to make it easier to understand.
The first thing we need to emphasize before becoming a good manager is that “all this is just a deposit from God for which I will be responsible.” That way, we are well aware that managing finances will also be part of our responsibilities later.
To become a good money manager, start by changing your mindset! You have to believe that managing finances can’t only be done by those who are accounting graduates. By improving our mindset, the ability will be a support aspect because this can be learned. But if you don’t have mindset that you can be a financial manager, even if you graduate in economics with perfect grades, you’ll never be a good manager.
After the mindset, then you have to record all the income and expenses! Also do a financial check-up once a month to find out if there is a leak in the financial tree. If in this month you spend too much money, it means you have to cut expenses and spend wisely.
Remember, recording the smallest part will affect your balance sheet! So it is highly recommended to take note of small expenses such as parking. If you want to be more practical, now you can use an application to take notes on your smartphone. Do it every day!
Get to know the situation by creating a financial tree, where roots are your source of income. can be from salary, pocket money, bonuses, assets and honorarium. Then on the leaves are your expenses. Of course, expenses must be matched with income. The condition when the amount of expenditure is greater than the income is certainly not very good. The condition of income is similar to the expenditure can also be very bad. Good conditions occur when expenses are less than income.
do you know the envelope system?
This is one way of spending strategy. This is done by putting money into envelopes according to categories to keep finances stable. This system also helps in knowing the use of money. In this training session, I got a lot of understanding about financial literacy which is certainly not only useful for my personal development, but also my professional development as a 3R volunteer. Even here, I also know that the indication of an independent country is that its people have an understanding of managing personal finances. In addition, it is important to understand that understanding financial literacy will direct us to use money according to needs, not desires.