Frugal Pinoy

The news about inflation rising to 9.6% is alarming, giving people more reason to learn how to live frugally and invest wisely. Over the next few days, Frugal Pinoy will be publishing a series of blog posts about how to lessen inflation’s effect on your wallet.

In this series, Stretching the Peso Against the High Cost of Living, we’ll be covering a variety of topics:

• Food and Household Needs,
• Utilities,
• Entertainment,
• Transportation,
• and Income.

Today’s installment lists basic frugality tips for Food, Household Needs, and Utilities.

Food and Household Needs

Buy vegetables, meat, fish, and poultry from the palengke, not the grocery. Grocery prices tend to be more expensive, and if you’re unlucky, the products won’t be as fresh either. I made this mistake when I was starting to be financially independent.

Eat more veggies than meat. Vegetables are generally cheaper than meat. Generally, because I’m pretty sure hydroponic zucchini is more expensive than one kilo of pork. When I say ‘veggies’, I mean your average kamatis, talong, repolyo, etc. It’s amazing how versatile these vegetables can be if you experiment. This month, I’ll be featuring some vegetable recipes you can use.

Buy non-perishables in bulk. This includes toilet paper, dishwashing liquid, detergent, soap, and other things that take a long time to spoil. My favorite place for these bulk purchases is Makro, but an inexpensive grocery store such as SM Savemore will do. REMEMBER: Do the math. Just because something is in bulk, it doesn’t mean it’s cheaper than it would be if you bought it in smaller portions. Your cellphone has a calculator - use it.

Plan your meals. If you can plan your meals throughout the month, you’ll be able to monitor the ingredients you use and how much you consume.  You can also apply batch cooking, if you can.  I don’t plan my meals strictly, but I think this is something I’ll be doing in light of the cost of food nowadays.

Do your groceries only once or twice a month. This forces you to be creative with what you have, rather than buying things at your every whim.  We usually just buy the ’staples’ of our diet - including  bread, margarine, cheese, cream, broth cubes, and tomato sauce.  It’s amazing what you can do with these seemingly ordinary things.  You can use them with a variety of vegetables, meat, and fish products.

Use generic products, but only when it makes sense.  Generic, store-brand products are usually less expensive than branded counterparts.  But make sure that when you opt for generic, you’re getting a good quality product.  So what if it’s cheaper if it doesn’t work, right?  Like in the case of the SM Bonus Dishwasher I mentioned before, it wasn’t worth the money at all (but an effective generic product from Savepak was perfect).  Try generics, but don’t stick with them if they’re not worth it.

Utilities.

Review your bills and cut back on what’s unnecessary.  When I realized that my cable TV bill was unnecessary, I unsubscribed from the service, which was costing me roughly P800.00 per month.  Instead, I spent that money on a DSL subscription, which pays for itself because I work online.  Plus, with YouTube and SurftheChannel, who needs cable?  I haven’t had cable TV in over one year, and honestly, it’s made my life better.

Also, if you realize that you spend so much money on your prepaid or postpaid cellphone service, try to cut back.  I don’t think I spend more than P100.00 of load each month.

Learn how to conserve water and electricity. This can help you spend less on your water and electric bill.

• Unplug appliances that are not in use.
• If you’re using a washing machine, wash your clothes in big batches rather than in small batches.  You generally use less water this way.
• Handwash underwear and light clothing.
• Maximize windows for lighting during the day.
• Use a rain barrel.  Since it’s been raining a lot recently, it wouldn’t hurt to store that “free” water in a barrel for future use (such as watering plants, washing your car, flushing the toilet, etc.)  Just keep it covered to avoid turning it into a home of dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

Here are some other water and electricity conservation tips:

• 49 Ways to Save Water
• 20 Things You Can Do to Conserve Energy
• How to Conserve Energy

In the next installment, we’ll talk about being frugal with Entertainment and Transportation. Stay tuned!

 How did you react with the startling news on inflation?  Are you taking any measures to spend less or earn more?

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Budgeting, Earning, Frugality, Saving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.