Saving money
Simplified ways to do so
So what?
ICYMI: Whether you’re saving money on big-ticket items or avoiding small everyday purchases, any money you spend adds up. Making incremental changes and taking quick steps to cut your costs on small and big life outgoings will have the following outcomes:
- Be prepared for job loss, disability, injury, a sick child, a car breakdown and other emergencies;
- Go on adventures, take holidays and spend time with your loved ones;
- Give you peace of mind and lead to a stress-less life; and
- Plans for and achieve short and long term goals.
This series of blog posts provides you with short and sharp ways to cut costs on a range of life outgoings that we regularly spend our hard-earned money on.
Petrol
You can take some drastic steps like driving less or not using the AC and heating but what good is a car if you can’t use it or its features. Below are steps that you can take that aren’t drastic or ridiculous.
As you shop around with insurance policies, you should shop around for better petrol prices. Use apps like GasBuddy, Petrol Spy Australia and myNRMA to find better prices around your area. You can even use the 7-Eleven app to lock in fuels for 7 days and hedge yourself against rising petrol prices. We personally use the 7-Eleven app or fill up at Costco as we are members and get discounted prices. If you frequently shop at Woolies or Coles, you can get 4 cents off per litre for every time you spend more than $30 per transaction on groceries.
Groceries
We all need to eat. In the midst of all the price increases, our cost of groceries have skyrocketed. In short of eating mashed potatoes and gravy for every meal, there are ways to save on your groceries without having to resort to ludicrous ways.
The most dependable way to save money is to learning how to read prices. Just because something is on special or discounted does not mean that it’s cheaper than items that are not. Rather than looking at the prices, pay attention to the price by weight of alternatives. You will find that many products that you buy thinking that they’re cheaper are actually more expensive per kg or 100 grams.
Go to local farmers’ markets. We regularly visited the Capital Region Farmers Market in Mitchell, ACT, when we were living on the north side of Canberra but now go to the Southside Farmers Market. Do bear in mind that not all produce will be cheaper than Woolies, Coles or Aldi but you may end up needing less of the ingredients you buy as they can be strong in taste and/or more nutritious.
The last quick tip that we have for you is to reduce the sunk cost by reducing waste. This can be done by properly storing produce by using breathable bags in appropriate sections of your fridge and planning your meals to use the ingredients that you have. You can stretch the useful life of produce by freezing, pickling, salting, fermenting and bottling them.
My experience
As we noted above, we regularly use the 7-Eleven app to lock in fuels, fill up and shop at Costco and visit our local farmers’ market. In addition to that, we pay particular attention to unit prices of most of the items that we buy and are huge sticklers for 1/2 off and clearance items at Woolies and Coles.
What now?
- Do you blindly fill up at the first petrol station that you see when the light comes on on your dashboard? Plan ahead to cut cost on your next fill up.
- Take a look at the unit prices of everyday items that you buy. You will be surprised at the prices between them.