Tag: making money

Start saving… NOW!

Hands up who saves?

I can hear you all saying – don’t be silly you usually have lots of month left over after your money and that there is none left to save. Or that you don’t have enough to live on, let alone save.

It might not be as hard as you think.

Here are some tips on how to start saving.

Write down everything that you spend. Record how much you spend – yes – every single last thing that you spend money on. Use credit card statements, bank statements etc to help you figure out what you do with your money. Once you have all your information – organise it into categories such as: rent, medical, food, clothing, car payments/petrol, entertainment etc.

Make a budget.  Now you know what you are spending, it is much easier to make a budget for all your monthly expenses. Do remember to budget in for things that don’t happen all the time – like getting your car fixed. If you are spending way more than you earn – then it’s time to figure out which are the non-essentials and start to trim them down a bit.

Plan on saving. The aim is to spend less than you earn.  You should try and plan on saving between 10 – 15% of what you earn each month.

Choose something to save for.  This is the fun part – you could be saving for short-term stuff – like having a holiday or a new car. Or things like a computer, cell phone, new handbag or a fancy matric dance dress. Then there is long-term saving – like for your education, your retirement or a deposit for your own home.

Decide on your priorities. No point saving for a holiday if you know you are going to need a new car soon. Of course, you can always save for more than one thing at once – you just have to be even more careful and clever with your money.

Pick the right tools to save.  Do some research and find out which place is going to safely look after your savings and make them grow. Most banks offer automated transfers – this way your money can zoot straight into your savings account at the beginning of each month and you won’t be tempted to skip a month.

Then sit back and watch those savings grow!

Sibo

Cookies

Sibo with a cookie 2

In honour of International Woman’s Day (8th March) – not to be confused with our South African National Women’s Day on the 9th August – I decided to write a blog about cookies.

Yum!

My mum has this incredibly easy recipe that I thought I’d share with you. Just make sure that you get your parental agent to help you out when using the oven please.

This is what you need for the basic sugar dough recipe:

125gm margarine (that’s a quarter of a block)
1 cup sugar (white or brown)
1 egg
2 cups of flour
Pinch of salt
Teaspoon of vanilla essence.

Heat the oven to 180oC.

Melt the margarine in the micro (or leave it out of the fridge for a while until it gets nice and soft). Add the sugar, salt and vanilla essence and mix it all up.

Crack in the egg and stir it well. Lastly, you add the flour and mix it all up together.

Using a teaspoon (or you can roll the dough into little balls in your hands if you don’t mind getting a bit sticky) drop small amounts onto a well-greased cookie tray.

Gently flatten the top of the cookies with a fork. (Sometimes it works better if you put the fork into a cup of hot water first.)  You should get at least 24 cookies out of this mixture.

Pop the tray into the oven (this is the bit where you might need an adult to help you – don’t burn yourself – remember the oven is hot!)

When they are cooked and you take them out of the oven – let the cookies stand on the tray for a little while before you transfer them onto a wire rack to cool down properly.  If you move them too soon they may break or crumble.

You can also do variations of this recipe – add a cup of coconut, crushed peanuts (just put a handful or two into a small bag and bash them with a rolling pin), two spoonfuls’ of peanut butter or if you want chocolate biscuits – add two tablespoons of cocoa powder to the basic recipe. If your mixture gets a bit dry you can always use 2 eggs instead of 1. If it’s too wet – add a bit more flour.

Once you get good at baking tasty cookies you could always sell them at school markets, or make extra-special ones for birthday presents to give to the people that you love.

Happy baking,

Sibo

Saving

Sibo saving money 2

How many people save? And for once I am not talking about saving water or electricity – I’m talking about saving money – although of course when you save electricity – you also save money too!

Somehow we never seem to have enough money to do all the things that we want to do.

So I did some sleuthing on the internet and found some ways that a person can save money.

  • Write a list before you go shopping and stick to it.
  • If you really want to buy something – wait a few days – like 30! Half the time you will decide you don’t actually need it after all.
  • Invite friends over instead of going out. Get your friends to bring plates of food too.
  • Make your own presents instead of buying them.
  • Clean out your cupboards. Don’t just toss the stuff you don’t want – have a garage sale or sell big items on-line.
  • Drink more water – not only is this better for you than drinking cool drinks, but you can refill your bottle from the tap and keep it in the fridge.
  • Stop smoking. Put the money that you would have spent on cigarettes in a jar for a month and then buy yourself a present – you’ll be shattered at just how much it is.
  • Swop books, games and DVD’s with your friends instead of buying new ones.
  • Don’t carry your credit card around with you – leave it at home for emergencies. That way you won’t be tempted to buy something that you cannot afford.
  • Pack your own sandwiches instead of grabbing something from the shop at lunch time.
  • Eat a good breakfast – this will mean that you don’t spend money on unhealthy snacks during the day.
  • Keep an “ideas notebook” in your pocket or bag – jot down any good ideas that you get and then you won’t forget them.
  • Check out free events in the newspaper.
  • Grow your own veggies – or at least some of them.
  • Carpool – not only is this great for the environment – it’s a real money saver too.
  • Join the library. It’s free and there are plenty of books to read that you can borrow instead of buying. Plus they often have interesting events as well.
  • Don’t speed. You’ll save petrol and won’t run the risk of getting speeding fines!

Let’s start saving.

Sibo

Doing jobs properly

Remember last week I made some money at entrepreneurs’ day at school? Well that got me thinking…

Why are there so many people who lead a life of crime when they could just put their mind to making some money legally?

Sometimes it is easier to offer a service if you want to make money – like babysitting or maybe doing odd jobs for your neighbours or for older people who can’t do stuff themselves so easily. This way you don’t have to have any money to start with.

Of course if you do offer a service, you have to be really reliable and do what you say you are going to do. Like if you are babysitting – then you need to be sure you look after the kids. You have to watch them and keep them occupied so they don’t get bored and get into trouble.

Once, when I was a bit younger, mum got one of the neighbour’s older daughters to babysit me for a few hours. She ignored me totally and sat chatting on her phone to her boyfriend the whole time. I got bored and decided to investigate my mother’s make-up stuff. I made a really pretty picture with all the nice colours. Of course I knew I was being naughty but was so bored I did not really care.

When mum came home she did not yell at me I like expected her to. She yelled at the babysitter for not doing her job properly. She also refused to pay her. Even worse, she bad-mouthed the babysitter all over the place so she never got a job in our street again. I overheard mum saying that children were very precious and if somebody could not be trusted to look after them properly – then they should not have the job. I guess she was right.

I all boils down to that old saying “If a job is worth doing – it’s worth doing properly.”

Our neighbour across the road never has time to walk her dog. I’m going to ask Mum and Dad if I can become a dog-walker. My friend Wayne could come with me – we’ll share the money and then we will be safer too.

Good idea hey!

Sibo

 

Word of the week: Dollop

Meaning: A blob of something.

Example: I put dollops of mums blue eyeshadow on the paper to make the sky in my picture.Sibo and Wayne walking Zona