It’s the end of the month again. It’s the time when almost everyone is receiving their monthly compensation from work. Every month, we ‘resolve’ to be manage our finances well, but something always happen in between like unexpected travels or medical expenses that somehow ruins the budget.

So starting this month, I resolve to do the following to help us manage our finances wisely.

1) Save- Yes, admittedly we don’t have savings apart from our life insurance or EPF/SSS. From this month on, I’ll be setting aside a portion of my online income for this.

2) Cook At Home- As I always mention, eating out has been a part of our weekly routine. It has been my way of  de-stressing as I’m mostly in the house with the kids 24/7. But since we desperately need to over haul our finances, I’ll do my best to cook food at home. Cooking and eating at home will also make me more in control in terms of my ‘diet’.

3)  Cut on electricity- Yes, we have to be more conscious of our electric usage. I noticed that there seems to be an increase our bills. It could be that Thailand has raised up their power rates or our usage has become high. Either way, I have to me more conscious of our usage and cut as much as we can.

4) Give – This principle might be new to some people but it has been truly tested in our lives that giving is an important part of our lives. As the Bible says, the more you give, the more you receive. Giving also teaches us not to hold on too much on our finances but trust God more than ever. There are many opportunities for us to give to people especially there is such great need all over the world. Just now, I read about Luke Hillier , who gave to Orphanetwork.

So, here are my action steps starting this month to be Financially fit.

I finally got to try the Zumba Fitness DVD that I downloaded online and boy, it was fun! I really had a great time dancing the Zumba mostly laughing at myself for doing the moves. You see, Zumba  has several fast Latin dance moves and it take concentration and practice to get the steps.

During my first try, I just did the Basic Zumba and then a few minutes of the 20-mins. exercise. The 2nd time, I finished the 20 minutes portion. I still have to search for Zumba Party Cardio and the rest of the DVDs. I hope I can find some free torrent for this. I’m sure they don’t have these DVDs available here in Thailand. Oh, with the internet nowadays, almost everything is ‘down loadable’ from business intelligence software to anti virus software, name it and the internet has it.

It has been a very hot day. I thought the weather will improve at night but I still couldn’t stand the heat. This condition actually made me want to have some ice cream. Yeah, yeah, I know the heat is a great excuse to eat ice cream and as usual, I succumb to the temptation. At first, my Hubby was reluctant to buy ice cream since he knows that I’m already trying to lose some weight. But after awhile, he too gave in to my request. LOL!

So, there it is..

A pint of Wall’s Double Dutch Ice cream for my midnight snacks.. I promise to be good tomorrow, do my exercise and watch what I eat.. pinky promise!