Sean: For absolute beginners, where should we start?

I guess this might be from the perspective of personal finance. Yeah. Let's answer it from that.

Toni: Okay. So more on money management. Well, okay. So I need to know more about the profile of this person, but if you're seeing, okay, so if we're talking in steps, I would say the first thing that you need to do, which you've mentioned earlier is to find ways to invest in yourself so that you could earn more later on. So once you're able to create that stable source of income for you, then of course you need to learn how to handle your finances.

So the first thing that you can do is to record your expenses or to create a budget for yourself. So I know a lot of people tend to shy away from this, or sometimes people would say that you’re stingy if you budget. But you know, a way to be yourself is to, again, run yourself like a business. So I tell this to people all the time. Imagine a business trying to profit, but they don't keep track of their expenses. So it's the same thing for yourself. You can run yourself like a business so that you can determine your own profitability.

And the only way for you to know that is of course if you write it down. So it doesn't matter where it is, you can write it down on a piece of paper, on an Excel spreadsheet, or using an app. You just need to know your numbers. Because it’s hard to run the numbers in your head. It's very difficult to do that because sometimes people go, oh, I can afford that, or I don't think I can afford that. But how do you know you can afford it if you don't even know your own financial numbers? So I would say that's the first step that you need to take.

Sean: Yeah, I think that that's a perfect answer. Can you give us the top five practical tips about money?

Top five? I would say it's probably going to be the five personal five steps. Right? Number one, establish a positive cash flow. Number two, get out of debt. Establish your emergency fund or if you're running a business, we call that a safety net. Get insured because you have to protect and secure your money-making assets. If that's yourself, then it's yourself. If that's your business, then it's your business. And lastly, invest to grow your money.

Toni: That’s the perfect answer. But if we’re talking more practical tips, like, is it more of how do you save up spending? All right. Maybe I could talk about how, okay, let’s make it more actionable. So one thing that you could do is to time your purchase. So we know that the common financial mistake is when people buy things, right away, especially from Lazada or Shopee. So what you can do is to, I would say, follow the three-month rule or at least the three-week rule.

Okay. So let me back it up by research. So they say that whenever you go shopping or whatever you splurge your money on, research has shown that dopamine doesn't actually hit from the purchase itself, or it doesn't come from the purchase itself. It comes from the anticipation of the purchase. So when you delay your gratification or when you put off your purchase to a different time, then you can come to yourself that, okay, maybe I don't really need this item, or I don't really need to buy this one. So that's one tip that I could give.

And then maybe another one would be to negotiate. Negotiate price when possible. So when you're buying every chance you get, you need to ask, okay, can you do a better price for me? Right? Because what's the worst thing that can happen if you ask for a discount? And they might say no, but that's just as bad as it gets. And if they say, okay, we'll bring it out, then I think it's a gain for you. So you can do this when you're purchasing car insurance or when you're buying things online, you can do that too.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/leadershipstack

Join our community and ask questions here: from.sean.si/discord

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadershipstack