I tried to make a pretty table on MS Excel to keep track of money I get from freelancing. Not that I get much, mind. But I’m happy when I get money, because really, how am I ever going to afford a car? I just got my first bank account here (by here I mean, in the Philippines. For some funny reason, my first bank account ever was my account in Singapore, with DBS, which is closed now for obvious reasons) so I want to keep track of where my money comes from, and where it goes after. My mom even put more money in it than I’ve earned (so far).

Don’t you just like the colors I used? Ha :P FORGIVE THE “ACCOUNTING” TERMS I USED, IF USED INCORRECTLY. Feel free to tell me if I used them wrong, because I was just guessing. I tried to Google them because I forgot the basic Balance Sheet terms I learned in high school already. Please don’t shoot the ignorant design ex-student! I can barely remember how to do formulas on Excel too, heh. The last time I did this was when I tried to keep track of my living expenses in Singapore (which lasted for just a month before I gave up updating the file daily and tracking every single food, item, service, and all kinds of transportation and other things I bought or paid for) — and that was over a year ago.

I’ve been paid for a couple of odd jobs I’ve done before: web design, production design, print design. Sometimes you just NEVER get paid, but that is why I don’t want to keep freelancing just yet. In the past, I got the money deposited in my mom’s account and I just kinda…left it there to ‘give’ to her. I feel this need to help my mom somewhat, even if it’s just through small things like that, because my dad doesn’t have a job so she’s the sole breadwinner in the family. My mom doesn’t ask for help earning money; we’ve survived all these years with just her job and it was amazing that she was able to send me and my brother to a very good private university while providing us with a middle-class lifestyle, but I still felt like I should pitch in, when I could, in some way. This is the reason why I only entertained studying abroad for a semester when I was able to get into a scholarship program for it. This is also the reason why I bought myself a MacBook Pro with the scholarship money, because I couldn’t ask my mom for it. I funded half my trips with the scholarship money too, and then returned money that I didn’t get to spend afterward. I’m pretty proud for being able to do those things for myself in the past few years. Now that I’ve graduated, I’m going to work towards eventually being mostly independent when it comes to financial things. On rare occasions I can splurge, but I never grew up rich and a lot of things seem expensive for me. I’m pretty frugal, even if I may not always seem like it. My goal is to get another scholarship for grad school in two years, and I will make that happen.