I've mentioned this before.
I had a change in weekend schedule and somehow this has allowed me to save a large amount of money.
It was quite unexpected.
My wife and I used to go out on Saturdays to walk around and eat some nicer food for breakfast and lunch and come home by around 2pm. Then maybe go out for a simpler dinner. But basically, on Saturday, we used to go out to eat all our 3 meals.
Then on Sundays, we would visit our parents and spend the whole day there and come home after dinner at 8pm or so.
Usually, over a weekend, we would spend around $50-$100, so this averages out to be around $300 or so per month.
What happened early this year is that one of my nephews started attending Primary school.
So my mum suggested (demanded) that we change our visits to Saturdays instead so that her precious grand child would be able to rest earlier on Sundays to be ready for school on Mondays.
For us, no problem, we thought we would just switch the dates and visit our parents on weekends and go out on Sundays.
Well, in reality, that was not the case. Now, we visit our parents on Saturday, but on Sunday, we just stay at home most of the time. Sometimes we go out to buy some groceries to use up our vouchers, or we may go out with our neighbour for dinner once in a while... but that's more or less it.
All those expensive lunches and dinners that we used to have just a few months ago have all pretty much disappeared.
The thing is... Sunday is just a lazy day for us. Previously, we would just go our parents place and hang around til after dinner and come home and sleep. We would run around on Saturdays.
But now, we go out on Saturdays to see our parents, but Sunday still remains a lazy day, so we end up staying at home, having a simple breakfast, and I cook lunch and dinner from my stockpile, and we watch shows for most of the day, or just take a walk to use up our vouchers for the week.
So basically, the $300 per month spending on luxury food has dropped to an all time low. This is quite surprising, cos we have NEVER not eaten "nice" things for years. I'm talking about easily 5-8 years where we consistently went out to eat fancy stuff on Saturdays. Even when I used to stay with my parents.
I think this constitutes a large chunk of my savings on my monthly expenditure.
I've saved on weekend fancy food spending and daily groceries. Total savings from both of these is around $500-$600. So not ALL my savings has come from free groceries.
Do I feel like I'm missing anything? No, not really.
Do I miss a nice steak? I do, somewhat, but when I think that that's going to cost me $30 per pax... I don't think about it so much anymore. I'll just wait for a special occasion to go treat myself or maybe I'll get some free steak someday... who knows...?
I do feel a lot healthier these days. Eating a simpler diet where I know what I'm putting in the food.
Some people may think I'm "suffering"... how can ERSG be happy when he can't eat nice things. Or I must be scrimping on daily stuff just to save a couple of bucks...
The thing I've realized is... the less I spend, the happier I am. BUT I think that this is cos I do have the ability to spend, just that I choose not to. And this makes me happy.
This does differ from people who are simply unable to spend and have to scrimp to save the few dollars.
I think cos this is my CHOICE, I am happy and I am not stressed over money. Cos the more I let go, the less stress I have.
So it's really interesting, cos I never expected that just a change in timetable would have such a drastic change in my spending habits. I thought that I would just switch the weekend activities and still continue to spend as per normal, but seems like that isn't so.
Well... maybe it's just me, but you could try it out as well. Just your schedule around a bit and maybe you might be able to save a couple of hundred bucks every month with minimal impact to your lives.
<<PREVIOUS POST // NEXT POST>>
Did you like this post? If so, could you "blanjah" me 1/4 cup of my morning coffee pls.
Many thanks for continuing to come to this blog to read my posts.
I had a change in weekend schedule and somehow this has allowed me to save a large amount of money.
It was quite unexpected.
My wife and I used to go out on Saturdays to walk around and eat some nicer food for breakfast and lunch and come home by around 2pm. Then maybe go out for a simpler dinner. But basically, on Saturday, we used to go out to eat all our 3 meals.
Then on Sundays, we would visit our parents and spend the whole day there and come home after dinner at 8pm or so.
Usually, over a weekend, we would spend around $50-$100, so this averages out to be around $300 or so per month.
What happened early this year is that one of my nephews started attending Primary school.
So my mum suggested (demanded) that we change our visits to Saturdays instead so that her precious grand child would be able to rest earlier on Sundays to be ready for school on Mondays.
For us, no problem, we thought we would just switch the dates and visit our parents on weekends and go out on Sundays.
Well, in reality, that was not the case. Now, we visit our parents on Saturday, but on Sunday, we just stay at home most of the time. Sometimes we go out to buy some groceries to use up our vouchers, or we may go out with our neighbour for dinner once in a while... but that's more or less it.
All those expensive lunches and dinners that we used to have just a few months ago have all pretty much disappeared.
The thing is... Sunday is just a lazy day for us. Previously, we would just go our parents place and hang around til after dinner and come home and sleep. We would run around on Saturdays.
But now, we go out on Saturdays to see our parents, but Sunday still remains a lazy day, so we end up staying at home, having a simple breakfast, and I cook lunch and dinner from my stockpile, and we watch shows for most of the day, or just take a walk to use up our vouchers for the week.
So basically, the $300 per month spending on luxury food has dropped to an all time low. This is quite surprising, cos we have NEVER not eaten "nice" things for years. I'm talking about easily 5-8 years where we consistently went out to eat fancy stuff on Saturdays. Even when I used to stay with my parents.
I think this constitutes a large chunk of my savings on my monthly expenditure.
I've saved on weekend fancy food spending and daily groceries. Total savings from both of these is around $500-$600. So not ALL my savings has come from free groceries.
Do I feel like I'm missing anything? No, not really.
Do I miss a nice steak? I do, somewhat, but when I think that that's going to cost me $30 per pax... I don't think about it so much anymore. I'll just wait for a special occasion to go treat myself or maybe I'll get some free steak someday... who knows...?
I do feel a lot healthier these days. Eating a simpler diet where I know what I'm putting in the food.
Some people may think I'm "suffering"... how can ERSG be happy when he can't eat nice things. Or I must be scrimping on daily stuff just to save a couple of bucks...
The thing I've realized is... the less I spend, the happier I am. BUT I think that this is cos I do have the ability to spend, just that I choose not to. And this makes me happy.
This does differ from people who are simply unable to spend and have to scrimp to save the few dollars.
I think cos this is my CHOICE, I am happy and I am not stressed over money. Cos the more I let go, the less stress I have.
So it's really interesting, cos I never expected that just a change in timetable would have such a drastic change in my spending habits. I thought that I would just switch the weekend activities and still continue to spend as per normal, but seems like that isn't so.
Well... maybe it's just me, but you could try it out as well. Just your schedule around a bit and maybe you might be able to save a couple of hundred bucks every month with minimal impact to your lives.
<<PREVIOUS POST // NEXT POST>>
Did you like this post? If so, could you "blanjah" me 1/4 cup of my morning coffee pls.
Many thanks for continuing to come to this blog to read my posts.
RSS Feed
