30-Day Challenge of Tracking Every Dollar & Cent – Day 1 – RM32.60.

It’s a happy day today because it’s payday from Google AdSense. Ka-Ching, more than RM900!

I deposited half of the earnings into my personal savings account and the remaining will be used when my younger sister and her family come to visit me and hubby this Saturday.

A bunch of 9 family members! It’s for sure that the dinner will be on me and hubby. When we are in KL, they pay almost every meal we have together. So logically, it should be our turn to do so. But 9 people wor, ouch!

Okay, let’s see Day 2 for 30-Day Challenge of Tracking Every Dollar & Cent.

Breakfast – RM2.20
Tea Time – RM6.50
Cold Drink – RM1.40
Contact Lens Solution – RM14
Lunch – RM7
Total Spent: RM31.10

Oh, yes, another reason for me to be happy is the online tasks that came in the afternoon! More online assignments mean more income; more income means more savings for rainy days. Woohoo!

How’s my savings going on? Well, sehr gut or very good. From RM1,500 when I mentioned it in December’s blog post, Thank God for AKPK Debt Management Program, Steady Income and Good Health, to RM3,000 now.

An increase of RM1,500 in two months! Amazing, right? This has got to do with a sudden increase in the number of online tasks in January. This doesn’t always happen though I hope it will.

Has my hubby found out my personal saving? Well, I am pretty sure he knows I am stashing away money. Just that he doesn’t know the exact amount.

I still need RM500 to reach my RM3,500 saving goal. I am thinking of transferring RM500 from hubby’s bonus and Ang Pao to my saving so that it hits RM3,500.

Speaking of hubby’s bonus, both of us are a bit disappointed with his half month’s bonus. We thought he could get a one-month bonus as said/mentioned by the principal when he was interviewing hubby.

Anyway, hubby only started his work in July 2009, so it’s actually fair to get half month’s bonus, right? Oh, not to forget that hubby got a RM200 salary raise starting January 2010!

Besides, there is still Ang Pao or money gift. According to hubby’s colleagues, it’s going to be given out on Friday, that’s tomorrow! Hopefully it’s between RM500 and RM1,000.

Be grateful, you AKPK DMP blogger! Count your blessings, please! Do you know that you and your hubby:

1. are now both in AKPK free debt management program that helps you pay down credit card debt with lower monthly repayments of RM320 and RM360 respectively;

2. have a dual income between RM4,600 and RM5,000 every month;

3. have an emergency fund of RM3,000 in the saving account;

4. have money to pay auto and home loan installments, utility bills and flat rental in time;

5. have extra money to spend on clothes and personal supplies;

6. are healthy and strong;

7. …

Thank You God for what I am and will be having. Wuahaha!

Is January a prosperous month to you? I think it is a lucky money month for me, the AKPK debt management program blogger, and hubby.

For me, a sudden increase in the number of product reviews is doubling this month’s income. If I add in my AdSense and Amazon earnings, wuahaha, this Chinese New Year is going to be a prosperous new year.

So far, my personal savings has reached RM1,700 without hubby’s knowledge.

As for hubby, besides his monthly salary of RM2,000, he will have a one-month bonus or maybe 1/2-month’s bonus. We are still grateful if he is only given a half-month bonus. After all, he only commenced his work on the 1st of July last year.

Oh, there’s still Ang Pao for him from the school! The amount of money given depends on his work performance. It will be between RM500 and RM1,000.

After deducting this month’s RM680 AKPK debt management repayments, RM820 car loan, RM374 home loan installment, RM150 bank overdraft interest charge, RM270 flat rental, RM110 phone and internet service charge, RM33 handphone fee, electricity bill, food and grocery expenses, there’s still money left to be saved as emergency fund and pay back some personal debt owed to friends/family.

I am glad that I have successfully saved RM1,000 as emergency fund in my personal savings account.

I mentioned that I would set up emergency fund in February 2008. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

At that time, hubby’s income was meagre and unstable. My income was barely enough to pay the credit card payments, utility bills and car and home loan instalments.

February 2008? I didn’t even know there was such a credit counseling and debt management agency called AKPK and its debt management program (DMP).

I only got to know AKPK in April 2008 while I was watching a biz program. But even then, it didn’t cross my mind that I wanted to enrol in its debt management plan.

I was still trying to pay down the credit card debt without wanting to get help from the credit counselling and debt management agency. I kept telling myself that I just needed to work a little harder to increase my income and cut down a lot more on expenses and spending, then my credit card debt would be gone.

Well, God always has something better for us, right? I must say that it’s God who gave me the chance to bring my financial havoc back to the right track. God heard my desperate prayer for financial help and led me to the AKPK debt management programme (DMP).

My AKPK DMP was approved in October 2008. Since then, I have been making one low payment to AKPK by the 30th every month.

Paying lower monthly repayment to AKPK also means that it’s possible to save money as emergency fund.

As of today, the amount in my personal savings account has reached RM1,000. There is still about RM700 from Amazon.com; it takes more than a month for the check to clear.

Added up, I will have had more than RM1,700 in my personal savings account pretty soon.

If the envelope budgeting system or the Canada credit counselor and personal money management expert, Gail Vaz Oxlade’s magic jars works on hubby, it’s likely that there will be more money saved as emergency fund.

Since I was approved of the AKPK debt management program (DMP), I have always been asked by readers or friends why I chose to get out of debt with a debt management program.

There were several reasons why I enrolled in a debt management programme and not debt consolidation or debt settlement. Debt settlement? I wonder if there is any debt settlement plan in my country.

First and foremost, it’s FREE to join the AKPK debt management plan. You are not charged any enrollment fee or monthly service fee. Yes, the DMP provided by AKPK (Agensi Kaunseling Dan Pengurusan Kredit) is free; it comes with zero enrollment fee or monthly service charge.

Since the program is free to join and at that time I had had enough of my piled up credit card debt, I made an appointment with a senior credit counselor in Ipoh branch.

Did I do any DIY debt management to get rid of credit card debt? Of course, I did. In fact, I began budgeting and cutting spending starting April 2007 to pay down my credit card debt before finally signing up with the AKPK program.

In a span of almost one and a half year, I managed to pay down my debt from RM63,809 ($18,000 plus) to RM40,344.

Just as I thought I could slowly pay off my credit card through budgeting and cutting back on spending, bad things crept in one by one.

Firstly, hubby and I were not able to generate more income to pay the bills. Money was always not enough when it came to making payments to credit cards, home and car loans, utility bills and personal expenses.

We started being in late in payments or skipping some of the credit card minimum payments. As a result, late payment fees, penalty charges, over-limit fees, and other miscellaneous fees began piling up and added to my already piled up credit card debt.

One day after watching the AKPK’s TV commercial ad, I decided to pay a visit to the agency and enroll in its debt repayment plan to help me get out of credit card debt without stress.

Since I was in the debt management program in October 2008, I have always been asked why I opted for a debt management program to get rid of my credit card debt.

There were a few reasons why I signed up a debt management plan and not any debt consolidation or debt settlement.

First off, the debt repayment plan I enrolled in is FREE. There is no initial fee or monthly service fee charged by the credit counseling and debt management agency.

Yes, it’s a free debt management program that is only available in my country. It’s not available to people in the US, UK, Canada and other countries.

As it’s a free debt relief program and I had come to a point that I couldn’t go on paying the huge amount of minimum payments, I decided to enroll in the debt management program.

But why didn’t I DIY debt management to pay off the credit card debt?

Oh, I did. In April 2007, I started self-help debt reduction to pay down some of my credit card debt before I joined the DMP. Between April 2007 and August 2008, I managed to bring down my credit card debt from RM63,809 ($18,000 in USD) to RM40,334.

Just as I thought my effort of tackling my credit card debt would pay off if I kept on budgeting and curbing my spending habits, bad things kept popping up.

First of all, the expenses always surpassed the income. Due to economy downturn, hubby and I were not making sufficient money to pay all the credit card minimum payments, car and home loan installments, utility bills and daily expenses.

When we failed to make payments on time, you know what will come next, right? Yup, banks and creditors started charging late payment fees, over the limit charges, cash advance fees, retail interest charges into my credit card accounts.

One day in August 2008, I told hubby that I had had enough of my credit card debt, non-stop phone calls from banks and warning notices issued by creditors. I wanted to get rid of them.

So, I am now in the free debt management program.

Okay, it’s a fact that you are up to your head in debt and you are so suffocated by it that it’s affecting your daily routines and thoughts. You have no idea what to do.

I understand. I have been in your shoes before enrolling a free debt management program in my country.

OK, take a breath and look at your debt with a clear head. Is your debt so unmanageable that you can’t even make next month’s minimum payments? If so, you should consider either credit counseling, debt consolidation or a debt management program.

Debt management program, also called debt management plan, is a program designed to help you get out of debt by combining all your multiple debts with various interest rates into one monthly repayment that you can afford.

This means no more driving to different banks to pay various cards on different due dates. In a debt management program, you just need to make One monthly payment to One agency on One due date!

The affordable monthly payment that your certified counselor works out with you is a fair amount of cash so that you have some extra money saved for yourself as emergency fund.

Once you are placed in the debt management program, all your creditors will cancel your card accounts. This is good because you will have no way to add new credit card debt to your existing debt; no excuse to use them for so called ‘emergency needs’. If you have no credit cards, you can’t be tempted to use them.

Once you have extra money left every month, it’s important to start saving 5%-10% of your income as emergency fund. As for new purchases, save until you have enough money to buy them with cash. Remember the immediate gratification of making purchases through credit cards that threw you into the deep debt hole? You wouldn’t want it to happen again.

If you are able to stay in the debt management program until your debt is paid off; do not add new debt to existing debt; and save up the extra money for emergency fund, it’s for sure that you can make your way out of debt pretty soon.

At last, hubby has started his work as a full time high school teacher with effect from 1st of July. My wish of him having a stable full time job has come true.

I must have God to thank for because He answered my prayer.

With hubby having a full time job, this means there is RM1,500 to pay some bills, pay off some personal debts from close friends and save for emergency funds.

Hubby’s current pay is only $1,500 per month because he is only given 15 classes per week to teach. There aren’t enough classes for the time being because it’s middle of the year now.

Although hubby’s salary is RM1,500, he is still considered a full time teacher. You know, he will be entitled to a month’s bonus!

If hubby is sure that he wants to be a discipline master after 2 months, he will have extra RM400.

Next year, it’s expected that hubby’s salary is between RM2,000 and RM2,400.

Let’s look at my current income from my niche blogs and tuition classes. I think they bring roughly RM2,500 per month.

Both of our income adds up to RM4,000! Wow, …

With RM4,000, we can pay my AKPK RM320, hubby’s AKPK DMP RM360, car loan installment RM820, home loan and bank overdraft interest fee charge RM520 and utility bills RM250.

Extra money will then be used for daily expenses and saved for emergency funds.

If you are among thousands of people struggling to pay your bills, you should consider getting help from a certified free debt management program counselor .

However before signing up with a credit counseling agency, make sure that the credit counselor appointed to you is certified through the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), or the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning.

You want a certified debt counselor that takes adequate amount of time to go through a very thorough review of all your bills, income and expenses to see if you need a debt management program.

If once it is determined that you need a debt management plan to help you pay off your debt, the professional credit counselor should explain to you how a debt repayment plan works and the pros and cons it before he starts negotiating with your creditors like banks and other financial institutions to reduce the interest rates and waive the late payment fees.

Since you have already incurred too much debt, you should opt for a non-profit credit counseling and debt management company that gives free credit counseling sessions and charges very nominal enrollment fee and monthly service fee.

Another task of the credit counselor is to also educate you on how much you should spend on a daily basis, how to keep track back your spending and avoid being trapped in debt again in future after you have settled all the bills.

The education to reduce debt and permanently change your spending habits is important so that you won’t incur further debt.

Seeking help from credit counselor is a good idea, but do your homework and make sure that the credit counselor is reputable.

I think this is the first time I have extra money in hand to give for a cause before Christmas. Each year since I was burdened by credit card debt, I was always short of money when it came to buying Christmas gifts, not to mention giving for a cause.

This Christmas is totally different. I am now under AKPK’s debt management programme (DMP). Not only do I have extra cash to buy Christmas gifts, I also have extra money to donate to a charity called Tze Chi Foundation. I stopped donating to this charity when my income was not even enough to cover my credit card minimum payments after deducting daily expenses, groceries, and car and home loan installments.

Although there is extra money in hand for Christmas gifts and money donation, hubby and I are not buying Xmas gifts for each other. We have agreed to put the money we would have spent on each other towards Tze Chi Foundation again starting this year.

Giving doesn’t necessarily mean handing over cash, there are other ways to donate your resources. Volunteering at a hospital, making dinner for a sick person, or working in a soup kitchen, to name a few here.

Other than paying off credit card debt and making more money online, another New Year resolution of mine for year 2009 is to give regularly.