How to survive on one stream of income

Tofarati Ige

It is advisable to have multiple streams of income but not everybody is lucky to have varied sources of revenue. You can still live well with one stream of income

Track your expenses

It is very important to be able to monitor your money inflows and outflows. Without knowing this, you will never be able to recognise where you are going overboard on spending. This way, you can cut some expenses if you see that, for example, a third of your income goes to meaningless eating out.

Make a budget

It is advisable to make a budget plan after at least a couple of weeks of tracking your expenses. This is the only way to be able to come up with a realistic plan. After you find out where you need to cut corners, you need to apply these to your budget plan.

Cut out junk

The first thing is that you need to de-clutter. The things that you haven’t used for the last couple of months are likely the same things that you won’t be using in the near future. Take them to the recycle bin or donate them to those who have less. After de-cluttering, you need to stop buying junk. Totally remove junk food from your grocery list. Instead, buy fruits, vegetables, meat, fish – all the healthy stuff that your family will benefit from.

Save

After cutting your expenses and following a budget plan, expect to see some amount of money left over. While this is the ideal setup, don’t feel bad if you don’t have leftover money yet as long as you are not going over your budget. If you are already seeing leftovers, don’t be tempted to spend it. Instead, keep it. You need to get into the habit of saving before you actually incorporate this as part of your budget plan. This way, saving instead of spending will become your second nature.

Invest your money

Saving is mainly keeping your money safe and earning a little bit of an interest, but to tell you the truth, simply saving your money is not enough. If you want your money to grow to its full potential, you need to try your hand at investing. Investing in the stock market is something more people are doing now, and it’s not that risky. Please note that investing in the stock market is different from trading in stocks. Trading may result to higher gains, but the market is extremely volatile and you may lose all of your hard-earned cash. Investment, on the other hand, means putting your money into blue-chip companies or companies that are known to be stable. Aside from the stock market, you can also look into mutual funds and bonds.

Set up an emergency fund

What is an emergency fund? Basically, it is a fund that you use whenever there are real emergencies like hospitalisation or a car breakdown. To create an emergency fund, you should keep the amount of money that you agreed upon in a bank account with an ATM card. This way, when emergencies do happen, it is easy to withdraw the money. However, you should resist the temptation of using this money for non-emergency stuff. Self-control is easier to deal with than regret. You never know when a real emergency would happen.

Sell your old stuff

Admit it, there are a lot of things inside your house that you barely even notice. It’s time to make some money out of them and make room for more important stuff. You can categorise these into things that you need to donate and things that you can still sell. You’ll never know how much money is hiding in your cupboard.

Get additional income

It is easier to deal with financial exigencies when you have multiple streams of income, so you should actively be thinking about broadening your horizon. Don’t get too comfortable depending on just one source of revenue. It is not always wise to put all your eggs in one basket. Look for ways by which you can make additional income, and still keep your major source of revenue.

Reduce bills

It is always wise to reduce expenses. Aside from removing junk and unnecessary stuff from your expenses, you can also evaluate your monthly bills. There’s a big chance that you can cut off some subscriptions and it will not make a big impact on the quality of your life. For instance, if you don’t even watch TV often, cut off your cable subscription. You can also take a look at your mobile plans and see if you can downgrade into lower subscription plans without affecting your needs. The reductions may seem little upfront, but when you add them up, the result is remarkable.

Live within your means

Never be tempted to spend above your means. This is the first step to one’s downfall that is hard to recover from. Don’t be envious of what your neighbour has; instead, focus on what you have. Don’t feel the need to upgrade every now and then. If something you own is still perfectly fine, there’s no need to upgrade. In fact, if you can downgrade, then downgrade. Living within your means is not as easy as it sounds, but it’s the only way to attain balance. You should never spend more than you earn, and you should never keep on augmenting your income just to fit your growing number of wants. You’re only looking for trouble if you keep chasing after material desires. Instead, live simply and focus on what your family truly needs. Save enough money to travel; bond over activities that don’t require much spending; and find joy in the things that are cheap and free.

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