Who Are You?

Hi there, 

You might be wondering, "Who are you?"

Well,

My name is Akmal Hafizuddin Bin Mohd Adam,

I am a first year undergraduate student majoring in Accounting and Finance at the University of Lancaster, UK. I took A levels in Kolej MARA Seremban (KMS) under MARA loan programme before resuming my studies abroad. Oh, and I was a student at SMK USJ 12 and SK USJ 20. That's basically the rough outline of who I am.

"Ok, but who do you think you are to be coming up with this stuff?"

That's an interesting question. Let me explain the context. 

Ever since I came to the UK (Close to 2 months now), I'm growing worried at how much money I have left. This is because I'm currently staying in an ensuite college accommodation thats charged at a significantly higher price than everyone else around by the weeks. I believe you can do a basic calculation to see just how much more I have to be paying. (Roughly 40 pounds more per week; 40*40 weeks=1600 pounds). So, I am already at a loss of 1600 pounds compared to most of my other friends here. To give you a rough visualisation of how much that is, basically you can buy return tickets to Malaysia close to 4 times over. :'( So, I was adamant to change my spending habits. No more eating out daily like I used to do when I was in KMS. The worst part of it is I have to cut my ice cream take. The last time I had one was close to a month ago. All for the sake of saving my money. I installed spending controller apps in my phone and initially done some tracking. 

But then, over time, I grew tired of using them, as there was no incentive to do so. For me, this was so because I couldn't see how it will play out at the end. How the kebab I bought today would effect the total savings I'll bring back Malaysia tomorrow. So I stopped. Then I read the book,The Millionaire Next Door, and taking it's advice by heart. One of the many realisation I got was that the large majority of millionaires in the world today spends more than twice the time to plan their budget than others. Yes, that's how millionaires become millionaires and remained so.

Now, to put things into our context, I figured, I needed to have a goal. More than just having money to travel, or to buy exclusive clothes. I wanted to invest in myself for the future. I set my dreams of having enough money to open a start up of my own in sya Allah. 

I figured, this applies to everyone. Whether you want to be an engineer or a doctor, set a goal farther into the future. Set a bigger goal and I want you to reach them. One of the biggest ways you can invest in yourself is to save for the future. Hence, my motivation for this simple spreadsheet. 

I'm not in anyway suggesting that this spreadsheet is the one solution to all your problems, but I believe it helps you to attain if not much, a single small step towards attaining your goals in life.