Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep162: 4 money rules you need in your 20’s.

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

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Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Welcome back to the Corporate Survivor Podcast. In today's episode, I want to share with you my personal finance and money philosophies that allowed me to change careers and quitting my six-figure high-flying corporate job to

becoming a career coach that you know today. So before we dive in, you may be wondering, hey Mei Ping, I thought you're a corporate leader, career coach, so why are you sharing your money philosophies today? That is because I asked a poll on Instagram and there are a lot of people in my online community who are very interested. And not only that, if you are new to me, then aside from being a career coach, I'm actually a qualified accountant, ACCA of the UK, FCCA as well as Chartered Accountant of Singapore. And before diving in, I'm actually a qualified accountant, ACCA of the UK, FCCA as well as chartered accountant of Singapore. And before diving in, I just want to say that I'm not selling

any investment, crypto, personal finance or budgeting courses. I'm only sharing my personal money philosophies that I have used for so many years in my life and the only course that I'm selling right now is the Corporate Survivor Career Training and Mentoring course that are designed for 9 to 5 corporate professionals to grow their career confidence in the corporate world. So that is the only program that I have, so just to be clear. So if you're okay with that, let's dive in. Okay, step one of Mayping's personal finance philosophy is to save, save and save. So what's very important is for you to learn how to pay yourself first. Now, saving is actually a habit that you want to develop as early in your career as possible because if you don't

learn how to save at the beginning of your career, it's only going to get worse as you move up the career ladder. So I'm not saying that, you know, from the beginning, you need to start saving like 50% of your salary, which you will get to at that point. But at the beginning, you may want to start with maybe saving 5%, then to 10%, maybe to 15%, 20%, and then add on, add on, and add on. And I can tell you that at the beginning of my career, I was barely earning anything. But even then, I still had the mindset of saving. So at the beginning, I saved very little money. But as I go on and, you know, when I left the corporate world earning six figures,

I could easily save, you know, 50, 60 or even 70 percent of my annual income every single year. And that's because I started with a savings mindset. So one more thing that I've also done, and like I said, you know, it's a habit that you want to cultivate as early as possible, is to start an expense tracker. So what exactly is the expense tracker? Because a lot of people talk about budgeting, which is saying that, okay, I'm going to spend this much, or I'm going to allocate money to this much, and this much, and this much, which is fine. But I think what problem that a lot of people face is, the money just disappears, like before you know it, right? Because you might

be thinking maybe you're asking me to save but I don't even know where my money is going because at the end of the month there's just nothing left totally understandable and the reason why is because you are not actively tracking your expenses so what I have on my phone actually is an expense tracker so what that means is that every single cent or every single dollar that I'm spending every single day, I would record it in my expense tracker. And I will also tag it against some of the big categories. So just give you an example of the categories that I have in terms of the expenses that I'm allocating, which is the first one is housing, then transport, food, groceries, household, money for parents, you know, education, right, in terms of like investing my own education. And then, of course, there are also other things

such as like travel, you know, shopping, well-being, and all these other things. But what I'm trying to say here, and what I've been doing for multiple years now, is tracking the amount of money that I'm spending, so that on the the monthly basis or I don't know, every three months, I will actually look at the money that I've spent and say, okay, this is the reason why I'm not hitting the savings target. And that's when I know what to focus on, because if you don't know where your money is going to, then how are you going to save a single cent? And just to be clear, or rather that, you know, my belief is that we are all working so hard is because we want to earn money, want to save money to give our family a better life,

right, for yourself and for your family. So if you're just spending every single thing and not being able to save a single cent, then what is the point of everything? What's the point of like going to a job, but you're just going to spend everything. I mean, or rather, you know, at least to me, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. So for me, learning how to pay yourself first, saving, but before you can actually save is to learn where your money is actually going to, which is how the expense tracking actually helps.

So I have it on my mobile and I track it every single day and I will highly recommend that you do so as well. I think you can find a lot of like these money tracking apps online and just download it you know I just make it a point that you know after dinner every day like maybe nine or ten o'clock I just open the expense app and I'll just insert okay you know today like lunch ten dollars and like drinks like five dollars or whatever because I still remember it and I make it a habit and once you make it a habit after a while while, you start noticing your own behaviors in terms of spending behaviors

and it actually makes it a lot easier for you to curb it and to be able to gradually hit your savings goal. So like I said, you can start by saving 5%, 10%, 15% and eventually kind of get to that percentage that you're actually looking for. So start by developing the habit. I say that as young as possible and I think that's going to help you a lot to really retain the money that you have

worked so hard to earn. And also I want to add a quick point here which is the reason why a lot of nine to five professionals feel so stuck at their jobs and feel afraid to change careers is because they don't have enough savings to weather them through the storm. So that means that if you are someone who wants to change a career, but you don't have any savings, right? So it will actually stop you from pursuing a new opportunity, even though it may be the right one for you, but you're just going to be afraid because during the process of maybe job searching or, you know, looking for that new opportunity, you may not be able to sustain yourself or your family. And it will also stop you from maybe taking career breaks

to heal your mental health, to take career breaks to care for your family, just like I have. Personally, in my career, I've taken two career breaks from the corporate world. The first one was in August 2016, which was the first time my mom was re-diagnosed with terminal cancer.

And the second one was in June 2019, which is up to today me transitioning to a career coach but how I managed to make that career change and to you know just leave it all behind and just quit my job was because I have more than six months of expenses saved and actually was way more than six months but I have at least six to twelve months of expenses saved and I knew that if I were to take a career break and spend the much needed time with my mom, my family, it's not going to be a problem and I'm not going to worry about money every single day. And that actually gave me the courage to make a decision that is right for me and for my family. So really think about, you know, the kind of power that you

can have, the kind of like freedom of choice that you can have if you truly have money saved for your rainy days. And whatever that rainy day will be, maybe it's a personal thing or maybe you want to try a new opportunity, you want to change industry, whatever that opportunity is and whatever that reason is, you don't need to justify it to anyone because you have the savings to pull you through that period. It's not something that you really need to worry about. So that's why learning how to save as the first most important habit that you need to learn in personal finance is to save, save and save. Now moving on to step two of Mayping's personal finance philosophy is the phase of what I call secure your wealth. Now this may be a bit controversial because in my view,

securing your wealth is very, very, very important before you start investing. And why do I say that? It's because if you don't learn how to secure your wealth, if something actually happens, it will just disappear. So personally, the approach that I've taken to secure my wealth is to buy insurance. And now I have a 50-50 view on what a good insurance is and so forth. And I'm sure you have seen a lot of content out there but what I'm suggesting here is basic insurance so personally you know I have bought a very basic insurance death disability terminal illness like these three to me like 100% is to secure yourself in case something happens to you or to secure your family in case also something happens to you so So for me, that's basic insurance that is to secure my wealth for myself or for my family

in the future. One thing I will say is that I think for insurance, I mean, there are a lot of people selling insurance out there and sometimes it can be very, very confusing. But I can tell you my personal experience is that I will never buy an insurance plan that has like an investment link plan. And I'm someone who has actually worked in banking I've worked in financial services for a very long time and let me tell you that a lot of times these insurance companies have no idea whether these investment link plans the returns that you're going to get will it will actually get you any return or not so I think you know in terms of how I look at it is just secure my wealth

and to make sure that like my money doesn't get like wipe off and doesn't completely disappear in case something happens and also sharing a personal story as well like for example when my mom was first diagnosed with you know terminal illness I mean she had cancer I personally felt that the insurance claims that she has managed to make the insurance claims that she managed to make at that time really helped the family out in terms of like medication you know getting the drugs and everything else I thought that it was something that was actually really helpful because otherwise it would really be a big struggle for the family to really you know come up with the cash and so forth because these are actually really really huge expenses for something that's really important

that's related to your health or your family's health. So I do think that, you know, basic insurance covering like, you know, the life aspect of things does help. And I've actually experienced the benefit or rather my, I guess, my mom had at that time. So I do see in that way. But as I said, you know, buying insurance for investment, I leave it to you to make your own decision. But personally, it's not really a philosophy that I believe in. And once you have learned how to save in step one and learn how to secure your wealth in step two, now we're moving on to step three of Mayping's personal finance philosophy, and that is spend, spend, spend. Because at the end of it, like, why are you working so hard for? We want to spend and enjoy the money that we have made. Totally true. And I also like

buying things that I like, right? But I think for step three, I think where a lot of people are mistaken is they cannot tell apart what is a splurge versus a skill that can help you make more money in the future. So let me break it down very quickly. So let's define splurging. Splurging is all about buying random things to feel a little bit happier about yourself. So random things that maybe have not much use in the future, maybe something that's trend-based, it doesn't really give you any benefit in the long run. So for example, it's about maybe you're buying a pair of shoes because you want to feel happy. Or maybe you decided to buy a dress because your boss gave you negative feedback today and you feel really bad about yourself, right? Or you decided to buy a dress because your boss gave you negative feedback today and you feel really

bad about yourself right or you decided to spend hours online or spend hours on carousel hunting for good deals you know spending time on all these online platforms looking at all these like fancy trendy stuff and you feel the impulse to want to buy the thing so what separates splurging from another category is the fact that you don't actually need this thing and you are probably not going to use it and it's just something that because it's there, you are tempted and you got it. Do you have any plan for it? It still costs you money, you have no plan for it and it will not bring you any benefit in the future. So that's what I define as splurging and let's be honest, like me and you, we have all experienced our splurging stage of uncontrollable, unnecessary spending, and I can

totally relate with that. So that's the first category. Now, the second category is what I call investing in skills to increase your earning potential. So this is something I think a lot of people tend to forget because when we think about spending, it's always about like random things. But I like to think about spending in this other category, which is actually investing in your own skill set. So for example, there are a lot of nine to five professionals who join my career course, The Corporate Survivor, which is a career training and mentoring course to help you grow your career confidence in the corporate world. Now, the difference between buying a course and buying a pair of shoes is that if you get a career course that is end-to-end and is something that will teach you how to adapt better to your new job, help you struggle less at work, help you create better relationships at work, help you communicate better, help you create new opportunities online on LinkedIn.

So what's going to then happen is that it can significantly increase your income potential. And I think the most important thing that you really want to think about is what is the long-term benefit that you can get by investing in something for your future. Like I said, back to the example of my career course, one of my students actually bought the program because she was underpaid with three years of experience and she was also a very shy person that she couldn't really speak up in her role. So she purchased the Corporate Survivor Career Course that covers career training and mentoring and she really spent time to go through the lessons and she was very active to join the monthly group mentoring as well to get the motivation to get more advice and within a

few months from joining the program she managed to get very positive feedback from her boss and her colleagues. They were very very supportive of her in terms of the work that she was doing. And she also felt more confident and more comfortable to communicate with them, even though she's highly introverted. And the best thing is that within six months, she was actually headhunted to join a global multinational company and she got a really, really huge increment. So when she first started, she was making $45,000. And with the negotiation skills that we covered in the program as well as her courage of actually applying for the right job also taught in the program, what she managed to do was to increase her salary to $75,000. So that's $45,000 to $75,000

within months of being part of the program. So what I'm trying to say here is that really look into what are the investments already, how can you spend your money more wisely? Because the increase in her earning potential, that's something that will continue on because salary is a multiply effect. So from $75,000, probably the next round is like $85,000 or $100,000 or something like that. So really think about the longevity of the things that you have purchased. The other rule that I personally also like when I think about the things that I buy is what I call the cost per use.

So you may have heard of it as well. So cost per use pretty much means that how many times are you going to use this product or service that you have bought? So let's go back to the example of like buying a pair of shoes. How often are you going to wear that pair of shoes? And is it going to wear that pair of shoes and is it going to break? So for example, maybe you are feeling very unhappy, right? You're facing some work problems and you just went around the shopping mall or you went around online and you decided,

okay, this pair of shoes looks really cute. I'm just going to buy it. It cost me $100. Maybe you bought two or three pairs because, you know, you couldn't choose between the colors whatever that is so you spent like three hundred dollars to feel a little bit happier but that pair of shoes you may have only worn it once so therefore if you're only using it one time that means that the cost per use is one hundred dollars per pair of shoes and that's quite a lot that's quite a lot so versus if you think about something that is more of an investment back to example i was using for my career course so So the lessons are lifetime access. It covers how to survive in the corporate world, your career confidence at your current job, performance reviews, but it also covers bonus lessons of how to find new opportunities, job search, as well as how to learn

salary negotiation. And these are lifetime access lessons. and if you are dedicated enough and you are able to allocate one hour a week or you know two hours every month to really go through the lessons and improve yourself you're not only increasing your income earning abilities but you're also really maximizing the course or program or workshop that you have invested in and therefore if the course is $700 $800 what you're going to do is that if you're looking at it often, then the cost per use actually is very low. And aside from that, you're also increasing your income earning potential. So that's the way I like to look at it. And therefore, I'm not saying that I don't buy expensive things. Yes, I do buy expensive things, but I really like to look at it in terms of like, is there a long-term potential for this you know I am I able to increase my earning

potential from this and is this something that will still be useful for me a few years down the road personally for me I will only buy one or two things that I really want versus 10 or 20 things of what I don't want and it's just an unnecessarily spending because to me it does not make sense to me if you really want that one thing but you choose not not to get it, you try to, you know, quote unquote, save money by getting 10, 20 other things. Let me tell you that that desire of wanting that one thing is not going to go away. Let me give you an example. Maybe you want to buy a bag that maybe costs $1,000.

You want it, but you feel it's kind of expensive. So you go around buying 10 other bags that cost $100. But let me tell you right now, that 10 bags that cost $100 is not really what you want because at the end of the day, you are still thinking of that $1,000 bag and eventually you might end up buying that $1,000 bag. And then overall, you have spent $2,000 because you have that $1,000 bag, which is what you really wanted, but you stopped yourself because you thought the other smaller stuff is going to make you happy, but it's not. And this is something that I've personally experienced as well. And that's why nowadays I much rather invest in the one of two things that

I really, really want. And I'll probably make a wishlist of like, okay, these are the things that I want. And when I hit my goals or when I budgeted enough for it, and then I'm just going to get it. And it's the same as well, right? In terms of like even investing in a program or a workshop and so forth. To me personally, it's better to get one or two courses that you really want versus buying 10 courses that does not make sense. And in the end, you get even more confused because you don't know how everything gels together.

So the concept still remains because something that is of high value maybe might cost a little bit more, but if it's helpful for your future and you're gonna make sure that you maximize it with your cost per use then I would just go for that and that's something that I have used and actually helped me save a lot more money in the long run because I'm not spending money on unnecessary things that I will regret in the

future but if I really thought through the kind of programs that I want the kind of courses that I want the kind of items that I want that may be price wise seems a bit more expensive but the value wise is much it retains much longer like years and years later I know that I can still use this I still want to use this still going to help me increase my income potential and the happiness factor as well and just to wrap up step three I'm not saying not to spend money but what I am saying is to pay attention on what you are spending money on so that you can get the best value possible for the longest time period possible to increase your earning potential so that you can make more money

and save more, have a better life for yourself and your family. Now moving on to step four of Mei Ping's personal finance philosophy is now we've reached a stage of surplus. I think this is actually a problem that a lot of 9-to-5 professionals get wrong because the moment they start making a little bit of money, the first thing they think about is wanting to invest oh mei ping how can i increase my income how can i you know invest what stock should i buy you know what crypto whatever nonsense i should buy you really need to think about investing in a sense of like if it's like throwing your money to the fire or throwing your money in the ocean if you get zero outcome at the end of it is are you still okay with that because if you're not okay with that then you don't

actually have surplus cash and you are probably not in the right mindset or in the right financial situation to invest now this is my personal opinion because for me the first three steps were things that i focus on and then to a point that I have money to invest, then I start looking into investments. Not the other way around. I think the people who do it the other way around are the people who are, in my view, are losing the big picture. Okay, for example, let's say, you know, you're earning $2,000, right? Even if you apply the best saving methods and so forth, you're probably not going to save a lot of money because your income is, your salary is only $2,000, right? So the extra surplus cash that you can save, like, I don't know, maybe it's $50, like $50 looking at investment opportunities, there's really not much available. Even if you

can find the best stocks and so forth, it's really only $50 that you have to invest and therefore the return is not going to be as much. So what is actually better is that at that phase of your career, you should learn how to increase your income potential, specifically in learning how to increase your salary, which could be a three-year project or five-year project, right, depending on how you plan your career. So if you do it right, then that $2,000 can be $4,000, $6,000, $8,000, $10,000. So let's say at $10,000 and you have developed the good saving habits that I talked about in step one

and everything else that we have talked about so far, then imagine how much more you can save when you're earning $10,000 and the surplus cash that you actually have that you can put into an investment. I think at that point, just taking out $200 for an investment is probably a lot easier for you to do

versus trying to dig out that $200 when you are making $2,000. There's no hard and fast rule with personal finance. It really depends on where you are in your career and where you are in your life. So these are the four steps that I personally use. And I think that has really allowed me to change careers, to take a career break, because I know that I can sustain my life. And that really comes from taking the, really applying the four steps

that I've just shared with you in this episode. So I hope that, you know, you take this episode as a bit of an inspiration and maybe a bit of a reflection on your own personal finance situation. If you're working hard to make money, then learn how to save it, learn how to secure your future and learn how to save it, learn how to secure your future

and learn how to continue to increase your earning potential so that you can really enjoy a better life for yourself and your family. So with that, I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you find my personal finance

and money philosophies interesting, drop me a DM on LinkedIn and Instagram and let me know. Make sure that you check out all the other episodes that I have on the Corporate Survivor Podcast on all things corporate world. Until then, all the best. Bye!