6 Tips for Saving Money When Starting Your Career

Living and working in Southeast Asia will provide you one of the best opportunities to save as much money as you can. Professionals in living and working in Southeast Asia are fortunate enough to earn high salaries, while maintaining a low cost of living at the same time. Considering the average person needs a pot of at least 2 million US Dollars to retire for 30 years, it will be a great opportunity to development a savings routine and ultimately reach your financial goals. Here are some of the best routines you can develop to set yourself up for an early retirement.

Create a daily, not monthly budget

Conventional wisdom states that you should budget on a monthly basis. This is a fallacy. A month is too long a time frame for an inexperienced saver to avoid spending all discretionary income. Remove your expenditure risks and set a daily budget. Calculate how much cash you have at the beginning of every month, after all living expenses & savings (see tip 2), and spread that over the number of days in the month. Never spend a cent more than your daily budget and you will be able to retire by the time you are 40.

Account for savings when calculating your budget

Too many people only factor in regular expenses when calculating a budget and do not account for savings. Make sure you get into a routine of saving at the beginning of every month before calculating how much money you will be able to spend.

Take account of your student loans ASAP

You may end up paying double the amount of your original student loan simply because of the interest you will accumulate. Make sure you are spending as much as possible paying off your student loan before accounting for any other regular expenses, and save yourself a ton of money in the long-run. Remember: the bank doesn’t care about you, you are only a statistic. Make sure you beat them.

Learn to manage your own investments

In the modern age it is incredibly easy to open your own stock brokerage account through platforms like: Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade and to buy shares in companies anywhere in the world, with minimal funds. If you can master the basics of investing from a young age (which is really not that difficult with sources like www.investopedia.com) you will improve both your business skills and the value of your bank account.

Do not buy frivolous things

The only items you need to spend money on at the beginning of career are: 3 tailored suits, a Dale Carnegie book and a decent haircut. Save the rest.

Buy health insurance, now

Most companies offer inadequate health insurance plans & decent hospitalization is incredibly expensive. Undergoing serious treatment or being involved in a serious accident could easily bankrupt you and your family & ruin your life. You might not think your insurance provider cares for you, but neither does your government or healthcare system. Most governments are enormously indebted & don’t have the means to take care of their citizens adequately. The onus is on you to take care of yourself.

SVEN ROERING is a Managing Partner at Tenzing Pacific Investment Management & has been based in Vietnam for 4 years. He holds an Economics degree from Rhodes University in South Africa. In his spare time he manages his own investments and is a level 2 candidate in the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program. He also enjoys cricket & golf.