Even though they had enough money, Loan and her husband still borrowed 150 million from the bank to buy a house. They kept their own money in case of emergency.

Thanks to this measure, after three years, Ms. Loan's family not only has a house but also owns a savings book of 180 million. She admits that if she and her husband had been proactive in saving, they would never have had such good results. Below is the sharing of Ms. Phuong Loan, 35 years old, currently living in Ho Chi Minh City:

We got married in early 2011. Our total income when we first got married was about 16 million/month. After 5 years, our total income now is only about 22 million/month. That amount is just enough for our family of 3 (2 husband, wife and a son born in late 2011) to live comfortably in Ho Chi Minh City. During the 5 years we lived together, we almost did not buy anything valuable. During that time, our two biggest expenses were a child being hospitalized which cost 30 million, and a house renovation which cost 50 million. In addition, we bought a table and chair set for 10 million, a microwave for 3 million, and a gas stove for 4 million. For the house renovation and the child being hospitalized, we had to borrow money from friends and relatives and pay it back gradually. For the other three items, I used a credit card. We did not change our car for several years. I changed my phone once, my husband changed his phone twice, both during Tet, when we got our 13th month salary.

My husband and I, especially my husband, are the type of spendthrifts. I don't understand how he spends so much: a few beers with friends, a few cups of coffee every morning, occasionally buying this and that to eat at home... but after giving his wife 2 million, he spends all his monthly salary. His salary is about 12 million, and it's been the same for several years. I also have a sense of saving, because I work in an office, I can't go out during office hours, so I set up an online savings account. However, through online banking, it's easy to deposit money, easy to withdraw money, so I often close it to take out money to spend. The savings in my online account have never reached 10 million.

We were lucky not to have to rent. My husband already had a house in Go Vap, bought with money from his parents before getting married. In early 2013, when our son was over a year old, partly because we did not like the house being near a canal, which often had an unpleasant smell when the tide was low, and partly because we were tired of commuting about 10 km (both of us worked in District 1) and having to pick up and drop off our child, we decided to rent the house to someone else and rent a house in District 7, near my sister's house. From here to our workplace is only 6 km, about 30 minutes by motorbike.

We rented a house for a while and found it quite satisfactory, so we decided to sell our house in Go Vap and buy a house in District 7. Having experienced the situation of not having enough money when our child was hospitalized for a month, I discussed with my husband that after selling the house, we would save 200 million VND in case of illness so that we would still have money in the house. My husband agreed. However, the house in Go Vap we sold for 1.5 billion VND and the house we planned to buy in District 7 was also 1.5 billion VND.

So we applied for a bank loan to buy a house. Initially, we also planned to borrow 200 million but were afraid that it would be difficult to balance monthly expenses, so in the end we decided to only borrow 150 million for three years. The time we borrowed was May 2013. We chose the bank that offered the lowest interest rate, the interest rate we had to pay was 12%/year. As for our 150 million, we deposited it in another bank, chose the bank with the highest interest rate to deposit, the deposit interest rate was 9%/year. The deposit interest rate changes every year but not much. I made a one-year term deposit to limit spending.

We borrowed money, each month we have to pay the principal of more than 4 million, the highest monthly interest is 1.5 million. My husband takes the part to pay the bank interest. Since having this loan, he has been much more frugal in spending. My salary is used for daily expenses for the family and raising the children.

In total, the interest we had to pay the bank for 3 years of borrowing money was about 27 million, because the debt balance gradually decreased, so the monthly interest also decreased. Meanwhile, the interest we earned from 3 years of saving was about 30 million.

Last week, we paid off the bank loan and took the house title. Luckily, the savings in the bank are still intact and we have not had to use them yet.

So thanks to this borrowing method, my wife and I have a savings of 180 million after three years, because we were forced to tighten our spending. If we had been allowed to save proactively, with the previous wasteful spending method, we would never have succeeded. We both determined not to spend this money, but to save it for emergencies or to invest in business when we have the conditions in the future.

According to VnExpress