The Art Of Saving

Occasionally, I'll come across articles either featured or shared by friends on FB on the art of saving. I've read so many that I conclude they offer the same advice. That's exactly my saving habits save for the investment part which is for wealth growth. If we're just talking about purely saving up, there's just 1 rule: spend less or earn more. Some things you just can't save on. Like a 5 minutes job spraying the wasps' nest costing me $60. It's inevitable that when your earnings go up, you increase your quality of life & hence spend more. So earning more isn't necessarily the solution to saving more.

I remember when I 1st joined nursing, my basic pay was $1.5k. Add in the shift allowance, minus the CPF deductions, I bring home between $1.3k to $1.5k. We often have to stay back to finish up the work (not paid) & get 1 day off a week. I hated the days where I had an afternoon shift followed by morning shift. While the afternoon shift ends at 9 pm, I don't exactly leave at that time. So by the time I got home, it would be just before midnight & I have to be at work by 7 am the next day. Perhaps it was the long & irregular hours & the precious 1 day off per week that earning $1.5k a month was sufficient. Of course, I was still living with my parents & the only bills I paid were mobile & internet bills. Some weeks we go for 12 days before a day off. Off on a Monday on week 1 then Sunday on week 2. I hated working in the ward. So I applied, appealed & re-appealed to be transferred to the operating theatre.

Working in theatre means I get $250 theatre allowance. I still got shift allowance as I had to do morning, afternoon & on call. Then, I hated being on call coz I had to work from 11 am to 10 am the next day. More often than not, I had to work throughout the night. That's 23 hours of work. While raking in overtime rates from 11 pm to 7 am, I'm not good with zero sleep. It's a terrible system anyway coz surely we're not safe when we're sleep deprived & we're dealing with human lives here. With the extra income, I probably was bringing home between $1.8k to $1.9k a month. I wondered how did I ever survive on a $1.3k salary.

Fast forward to recent years. I became a Senior Staff Nurse & my basic pay in my last job was $3.3k. Theatre allowance was still $250 despite it being 10 years later. My net pay was slightly below $3k. But I couldn't save at all. Of course, by now, I had to support not just myself but my parents too. By the time I'm done paying bills & living expenses, I can barely save $200 a month. Throw in the debts my parents raked up, that costly divorce & the $20k I didn't manage to recover, I had like $20k in savings despite working for 10 years.

With that money I had, I came to Perth. If you've read my old posts, you will know that very rapidly, the money dwindled down to just barely $6k in the span of 6 weeks. I did envy those younger couples who had it going for them. But I know my path, though a rough 1, is meant to polish me. Becoz I have been there, I have been rock bottom down, I appreciate what I have even more. As the saying goes, compare your present self to your past self, not with someone else.

I work lesser hours than I did in SG, between 20 to 30 hours lesser a week. But I'm netting almost twice my salary in SG. While I have to send $1k back to SG every month, I still manage to save at least $1760 a month. It's so precise coz $1k comes from me & hubs transfers $430 to me every fortnight when he gets his pay for rent (our weekly rent is $430 you see). Whatever money he transfers to me goes into the savings account. I keep tabs on my bank balance & the day before my salary is due to be paid, I take note of the amount left. Once the money is in the next day, I'll transfer $1k plus the balance from the previous day. Building my savings 1 pay day at a time.

I read that someone told Nix as mentioned in his recent post that Australia is at its worst in 39 years. I don't know about job security here. I won't know if either of us will suddenly lose our jobs. But we just have to take it 1 day at a time & never lose sight of our goals. Yes, it's easy for appreciation to fade into contentment, then discontentment when we start taking things for granted. Then we just have to constantly compare what we have now to what we had in the past. Most importantly, the peace that eludes me in SG pays me a visit every now & then. I'll work on it more. Am I wearing rose tinted glasses? Nah, just the glasses of plain old gratitude for things big & small.