When I first got a job with a commission-based salary, I quickly learnt how about managing cashflow. Here are the lessons I learnt to cope with a variable income. Read the full article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/managing-finances-commission-based-income-kenneth-chan/

1. SURVIVING ON A
VARIABLE INCOME
HOW I MANAGED AS A NEW SALESPERSON

2. LIST DOWN EXPENSES
Identify what you spend on and prioritize!
Once I identified the essentials, I added in luxuries
like entertainment and fun money for stuff like drinks
at pubs.
In doing so, I clearly demarcated the "needs" from
the "wants". This makes it easy to make cuts when I
was only drawing my basic salary.

3. NEEDS WANTS
Phone bill
Transport
Meals
Insurance
Rent
$30
$100
$250
$300
$500
Netflix
Clubbing
Avocados
Starbucks
$16
$200
$50
$150
*Cut when necessary!

4. INCREASE YOUR YIELD
I moved my money into a high interest bank account
like CIMB's Fastsaver with 1% p.a. Compare this with
the 0.05% p.a interest rate I was getting on my
regular savings account.
That's 20 months of interest in just one month!
Take a look at the terms and conditions though.
Some bank accounts have minimum requirements
for expenditure or salary to qualify.

5. REGULAR
INTEREST
Savings:
Interest Rate:
Monthly Interest:
$5000
0.05%
$0.21
$5000
1.00%
$4.16
HIGH
INTEREST

6. PAY YOURSELF FIRST
I devised a system where all my money would go into
my high interest (savings) account and I would
transfer my budgeted expenses to a regular interest
(expenses) account.
This ensured that the bulk of my money was
generating a higher interest, while at the same time,
keeping me to a budget as I only had access to
ready cash via the expenses account.

7. SALARY
EXPENSE
ACCOUNT
SAVINGS
ACCOUNT
BILLS /
EXPENSES

8. WERE YOU ON A
VARIABLE INCOME?
HOW DID YOU
MANAGE YOUR
FINANCES?