Personal Finance/Budget Coach

Monfreid

Registered User
Messages
27
Hello,

A few years ago, I had no emergency fund, a personal loan, a credit card and no budget but never realised that I had a problem until the time I built my house. I had to pay my rent and the mortgage while the house was being built, towards the end, the mortgage and the rent were alsmost equal and that's when I realized that I needed to do something about my personal fincances.

To cut a long story short, I did listen to a lot of personal finance podcasts, one of them being the Dave Ramsey show.

A few years later, I don't have a credit card or personal loan anymore, I have a budget, savings, an emergency fund and sinkings funds for stuff like holidays, Christmas, ...

Now, I really hate debts and want to get rid of my mortgage as quick as possible, the goal is to pay off my house in 15 years instead of the 25 years of the initial mortgage terms.

Some people around me, friends and family, were slagging me sometimes about personal finance/budget/... but those same people have asked me for advice later on regarding budgetting, ... I never went into details with them (they never shared their income, expenses...) , just the overall idea of how I do my budget but I really enjoyed sharing this with them so I would like to know if I could do this as a side hustle, do I need to get some official training on this, how would you find clients?

Any thoughts on that or previous experience maybe ?

Thank you
 
Three months, regardless of whether the person is a teacher or a carpenter?

The three months net income is for all workers regardless of profession or trade. It's really there to cover expenses should a person lose their job and they will have enough funds to see them through until they get new job .
 
The three months net income is for all workers regardless of profession or trade. It's really there to cover expenses should a person lose their job and they will have enough funds to see them through until they get new job .

But over the course of their career (or during a global pandemic for example) would the carpenter (construction industry) not be more likely to lose their job than a teacher (public sector, would need to murder a student to get sacked)?

I'd say the carpenter needs more months salary set aside than the teacher. And in my experience, they usually have less
 
Would 3 months be enough in the current climate ?
I guess the 3 months would be a min and maybe 6months would be a more comfortable cushion.
 
Emergency fund what size of a fund would you recommend for emergency ?
Would this fund be held in cash ?

I don't like the term emergency fund, as lots of different things can be classified as an emergency, car breakdown, health, forgot to budget for Christmas.

Like the OP I set up funds for each of these items (I have health insurance but also have some money put aside to cover doctor visits and deductible).

So instead of emergency fund I called it income replacement fund. I'm in a construction related field but relatively secure but chose 6 months as a target. It makes sense to consider both the risk of loosing job and how long it may take to get work.

I believe it makes more sense to base it off expenditure than income as some ones income could be well above what they spend. To come up with a number I looked at my current monthly budget and then thought about what I would change if I lost my job. I would need to keep eating, rent, most bills, putting money aside for health insurance, car insurance and tax etc but I would stop saving for a holiday (whatever I had would have to do), I'd stop saving for a house deposit also. I kept some money for drinks out but cut back on money budgeted for eating out.

I also included that I would receive 800 a month from social welfare although I excluded that from month one in case there are delays.

So if I think I will need 1600 a month I need to have 1,600 + 800 + 800 + 800 + 800 + 800 = 5,600 in my income replacement account. I would then move 1600 in every month as if it were a pay check and add the 200 a week social welfare to the account.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top