If you’re a gamer you’re familiar with the need to choose Skills to focus on. If that reflected your budget, would it change your money allocation? In the third instalment of our Money Management Role-Playing Game (MM-RPG), we’ll be exploring our Skills! Let’s continue our quest.

PS: if the above is gibberish to you, have a quick look at the introduction article. There I’ve outlined the most important parts of a Role-Playing Game (RPG).

How your Skills work

We only have a finite amount and we need to choose where to spend it.

• We need to choose where to spend our money wisely. Like carefully choosing which Skills of your character to upgrade.
• We can solve for instant gratification or delayed gratification. Like choosing a skill to unlock many others, or choosing the one we can use immediately.
• Spending patterns often build on one another. Like when you venture down a specific skills-tree to unlock all abilities therein.

Some choices are better than others, let’s explore how it works.

The basic truths of your Skills

• Generally, it’s better to struggle early on to unlock better future abilities.
  • Opening important skill-trees early on is crucial. Even if you have to sacrifice a more immediate ability. You’ll thank yourself later on when you have stronger abilities. 
  • A budget that prioritises saving and investing (overspending) is better in the long run. Try holding out a little longer before you spend.
• Don’t focus too much on a single skills-tree, you might need others later on.
  • How do you defeat a fire elemental if all your abilities are ice-related? You probably don’t. So be mindful of maintaining a good balance.
  • Make sure you focus on all the required items in your budget and balance them appropriately. Balance items, like saving, settling a debt or covering living expenses.  Also balance ratio’s, like saving between 10 and 20% of your income.
• Account for all your Skill points.
  • It’s not very useful not spending points. Neither is forgetting where you spent it!
  • Be meticulous with your budget and marry it with your actual spending. It should not be “just a list”, it should provide you with a deeper understanding. So that you clearly see where you spend, and where you should spend, your money.

In summary, remember the following picture

Thanks for your time,

Francis

PS: if you would like to read about the similarities between your HP bar (Health Points Bar) and your income and expenses, click here. Or learn about how your character’s Equipment resembles your assets and liabilities here.

Image source: Battleheart Legacy (Mika Mobile)