Who wants to be CEO of Google, Microsoft ?

At least not me. The way I see it, I am the CEO of my own little enterprise. It has got me and my lovely little workers. And the workers are.. you guessed it..the money. There is nobody else. They are quite special workers and very unlike the workers in our world. They work for me but they do not ask for any pay. They can work 24x7 all throughout the year but never demand a holiday let alone weekend breaks. There are no employee unrest,  no labour unions. Nothing whatsoever ! . I bet CEOs of all the corporations like Google, Microsoft, Oracle etc. love to have workers like these.
But I do have some responsibilities. First to see that they are always working. Second to ensure that there are minimum attrition (read spending). At present my work force consist of temporary workers (the money I am going to spend) and permanent workers (the money I will keep investing). My permanent workforce has increased to 554. But I am always at look out to employ more (by saving) and increase it consistently (by investing it wisely).
Man I love being the CEO.

Total Earned : Rs. 554

RBS bank fixed deposits : Makes my money work

I have mentioned before that my money has been working steadily while I blog :-). And indeed it has. One of  the fixed deposit has matured and that yielded additional Rs 197. So what I will do with Rs 197. I see it as an increase in my workforce. More the workforce more money for me. So I am not going to spend it but instead re-invest it back in another short term deposit in RBS bank.
So what I did here
- I had put my spare money to work by making a short term fixed deposit.
- Instead of earning a paltry 4% interest I earned 5.85%.
- Fortunately I still do not need money right now, so I have created another short term fixed deposit. But neat thing I did was to increase the principal by adding the interest I earned. More the principal..more the interest.
- I, at no time left my money to idle. Instead I made it work harder.

Total Rs. earned : Rs. 554

Vodafone : Happy to help ? Oh yes !

Here in India Vodafone's slogan is "Happy to help". Infact both Vodafone and PayBack helped me to be happier. I needed to recharge my mobile. Now Vodafone.in allows to pay  in Payback points. I just happened to have some Payback points enough to pay for the recharge. (I had Payback points by virtue having of account in one bank which gives rewards in payback points)  That saved me Rs 350. Rs. 350 saved mean Rs 350 earned.  You may think that was neat. But here comes the clever part. I am not going to spend Rs 350 but will park it my savings bank and create a Fixed Deposit to earn some interest on it. So not only I earned Rs 350 by virtue of having a Payback account, I am also going to earn more in by making it earn more.

So what I did here

-  I had enrolled for reward scheme (which was free of charge). I always look for these

-  Once I saved money, I did not spend it. I re-invested it back to earn or work even more for me. Saving is key to make your money work.  When I save, I have got more workers (read money) to work for me.  More worker..more earning..simple ..isn’t it.

So Total Earned : Rs : 357.00

Source of my money

I need money to generate money. (I always remember that money is my worker and not me). But from where my money come from. I wish I had an inheritance to start off. But like most of us that is not the case. So I had to start from scratch.  My money comes from my day job and that too by doing it well. Yes “by doing well” in the day job is one of the key to have regular supply of money. When I do my day job well , I get better increments and bonuses than my peers. So instead of 10% increments that everybody gets I get 14%. So next year my absolute increment is even more because I have higher base salary than everybody.  Over the years it translates to a better pay package. And that in turn means better savings. Better saving means that more workers (money) for me to work for me.

How to save better and how to be best in your day job will be topic for another post.

A quick check on my workers reveals that they have been steadily working away and will give returns any time in few days.

So …

Total Rs. Earned : 7.00

Do not let money idle

To make money work for you, you need to have right information at right time and tools to act on that information.  For a safe player like me, most of the time my money stays in bank account. So I have internet access for all my bank accounts and have subscribed to SMS alerts or e-mail alerts. That way I know what is happening in my accounts. Whenever a Fixed deposit has matured or some dividend has been deposited to my account, I immediately get a SMS or an e-mail and I act quickly to not let the money idle. If I cannot find any good way to invest it somewhere, I at least make a short term fixed deposit to give a better interest rate than usually paltry savings bank interest.  This way I ensure that my money is always working for me. 

I haven't earned anything in last few days, so

Total Rs. earned : 7.00

Minimum balance - Maximum Interest

While making a deposit to one of my bank account (which I do not use very frequently), I just happened to check the current requirement for minimum balance that has to be maintained. And to my horror I discovered that I have been maintaining far more balance than what was required . I could have kept this in another account which offers more interest (in fixed deopsit) as opposed to earning measly savings bank interest. So I have moved this surplus booty to my RBS account and I am going to earn more interest.
As a result of this transfer I am going to earn Rs. 7 per month more as long as I am not going to spend it.
So that is 700 paise (or pennies) saved. Finally something to show.
I am going to check my other accounts and see if there is any surplus money lying around which is not earning much and if yes move it to other account and convert it into fixed deposit.


Total pennies earned : 700.00
(Keeping a count in pennies is not very pratical is it, so I am going to keep the count in Rs.)

Total Rs. earned : 7:00

RBS for fixed deposits

Today I made a FD (fixed deposit) in RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) of Rs. X which I am not going to use for at least next 15 days. The interest rate they give is 5.85% which is best AFAIK for any bank in India for such a short duration of 15 days. I have not made any pennies today (or paise in my case) so the total remains zero. But I am going to update the total with the interest earned later when the FD matures.

( I will not reveal some of the figures to keep my financial data confidential.)

Total pennies earned : 0.00

Why this blog and why you should read it ?

My wife calls me "penny wise and pond foolish".  But in literal terms only. She alleges that I while I would go to great length to save pennies but will not think twice about spending pound or for that matter large amounts of pounds. I do accept the charge. But this time I am going to share this all with you. And later (say in few years) you can decide whether indeed I am "penny wise and pond foolish".  

But more than, I want to share a very important secret to make money. And it is not earning more money by working even harder. It is by making your each penny, cent, and paisa whatever, do all the work for you. All your money should do some work. They should not be idle in any bank or locker and doing nothing. So I am going chronicle as to how much I made by making my money work. Since I am based in India most of the posts will make sense in Indian context only, but the principal remains the universal.

Credit for this inspiration goes to  Robert Kiyosaki  for writing "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and to my dear wife and father for recommending this book. I highly recommend this book if you want to take control of your finances and make more money in the process.

I am going to keep a running total of all the pennies I earned by virtue of making other pennies work. Your comments are always welcome.

Total of pennies earned : 0.00