Planning My Budget For the Next School Year

May 14, 2022

Another school year is about to close. Since I'm only a part-time teacher, this means, I will loose my monthly salary for about three months. I do have now 1 BCH in savings, but in currrent price rate, that's only a little over $170! That is roughly around PHP8,000.00 only! Hopefully it could bounce back and go over $300.00 again before the end of the month.

Greetings my read.cash family and fellow Bitcoincash enthusiasts. At the time of writing, the Bitcoincash price dropped by about 20% in the last 24 hours. However, it seems a lot of other cryptocurrencies have dropped at that rate, while others have dropped by at least 40%.

This got me thinking about our children's education in the coming school year.

Our Current Situation

We have two boys. One will be on the third grade and the other will be on Kindergarten-I next school year. My wife is a public school teacher, while I teach part-time in a private school and do some side IT-related hustles outside the school.

Before the pandemic, we enrolled our eldest in the school where I teach for Kinders 1 and 2. When the pandemic hit, we decided to transfer him to the school where my wife teaches. The pandemic hit us financially, especially me. So we had to cut down on our expenses too.

Blended Face-to-Face Classes

In the next school year, there will be blended face-to-face classes on qualified schools. Both public and private. I thought it would be best to enroll our two boys into the private school where I teach. The question is, are we ready to that financially?

If we enroll the boys in the said private school, we are going to need about PHP 60,000 for the whole year tuition for the two of them. We can't afford to pay that amount in cash. Perhaps, our best option is pay at least PHP 20,000 as a partial payment. That means, I am going to need PHP4,000 a month for their tuition.

I think, I can handle that. If we were not planning to spend of something else.

Other Plans.

Our house badly needed repair. It's been battered by super typhoon Yolanda in 2012 and got another beating by the Typhoon Ursula in 2017 (or was it 2018?). I estimated we need at least PHP30,000 to have the house fully repaired.

Then we need a car. We can no longer fit in my bike. Besides, it needs major repairs too. Thus we need a car. Should we get a second hand car or a brand new one? I'm setting my eyes on a low-price brand new car. Priced at around 500K. However, I still haven't checked with any car dealers yet. I know a second hand vehicle sound a more economical option, but in our area, it's not easy to find a good second hang vehicle that will not give the buyer a headache. Anyway, I think I can delay the car for now.

How Much Do I Need?

• House Repair: PHP 30,000.00

• Enrollment: PHP 20,000.00

That's PHP 50,000. That's roughly what I need to earn this month plus a little more. The thing is, that's the amount also that I have in my goal for this month. The question is how do I earn that amount?

As for my the monthly tuition fee, I'm aiming to earn at least $200 a month online. This will take care of the PHP4,000 monthly tuition fee and our other expenses.

Dropping Price of Bitcoincash

Since the price of the Bitcoincash took a steep dive last week, I'm not going to touch my BCH earnings for as long as I can for now.

Alternative Sources of Income

My other option is to find alternative sources of income. It could be cryptocurrencies or fiat. At the moment, I believe it's best to earn more fiat so I can save my BCH earnings for the future.

Unexpected Sources of Income.

In April, a huge chunk of my income came from an unexpected source. Who knows, by another miracle, I will have another this month.

In Closing

Setting an earning goal each month is one good way to start building your financial goals. However, we also should include our monthly budget. And as much as possible, limit the budget to the most essential only. This way we can see how much we really need to earn so we can save four our future.

With this, we can live build a roadmap to our financial freedom.

Thanks For Reading.

Disclaimer:

The content of this post is written for educational purposes only and not a financial advice.