Eating out: With rising prices of food items and other condiments, eating out has also become costlier, one can plan eating out and make use lots of offers available out there like discounted Lunch/ Brunch buffets , online coupons of restaurants all over at groupon.co.in and many other promotional websites. The same experience can be maintained which comes with little extra effort and lots of savings.
Smart Shopping: Grocery shopping can be done from wholesale markets and one can buy larger amount in one go. For example: if 1 kg rice costs Rs.50, then same quality rice will cost Rs.45 or may be less when bought in a packing of 5 kg. This is because of the packing cost. Also, you will save in two ways, one is you are paying lesser for per kg of rice and also saving money on frequent trips to the market as you have stocked up for the entire month. Similar technique can be applied to other products as well.
Movie viewing experience: Lot of Cinema halls offer discounts on weekdays. Why not try and watch movie on a weekday and save some money J For instance PVR all across India has Thursday as discounted day for all movie lovers for which they charge as low as Rs. 75 for as movie show. If you are an Avid movie goer, this will save a lot of money. Alos, we can also enhance our movie experience by buying the gold class ticket at the price of Silver class.
Refrain from Impulse buying: Though I am fan of lines from movie Khuda Gawah “Itna mat soch … soch gehri ho jaaye … toh faisle kamzor ho jaate hai” which means Don’t think so much … if the thoughts become deep … then the decisions become weak .But its still better to analyse the actual need and affordability before getting into Impulse purchase.
Remember “Impulse buying is just the Momentary thriller”
Sales with huge markdowns can make impulse purchases very tempting. And usually the goods bought are either bought because it was actually needed for long or it could be brought to some use which is not known. The ultimate goal is to buy. Till 2 years back, I used to buy things which I later realised are neither useful nor beautiful like I bought 3 pairs of shoes at the price of two and I never wore the third one for full one season and by the end of the season, it was worn out and eventually had to throw it.
Using Plastic money: There are pros and cons of using Credit cards. Having Credit cards in your pocket will give you the liberty of shopping beyond your means which also means you are shopping without money in your pockets. It is like someone else is sponsoring your shopping today for which you have to pay tomorrow failing which you will have to pay interest thereon.
One more important point here, not many people are aware of the fact that full outstanding on credit card has to be cleared in one go else interest of 17-20%…is charged on full amount. For instance, if your outstanding balance id Rs.101230 and you pay a round figure of Rs. 100000, interest for default will be charged on entire Rs.101230 and not the difference (101230-100000) Rs.1230 which means you will end up paying Rs.1434 extra for that month. I made this mistake in 2012.
On the other hand, you can buy your travel tickets , pay Life insurance premium , Pay Bills, Pay Home loan EMI etc which in any case you had to pay through your savings bank account , but paying through credit card will give some bonus points and added advantage. Make a habit of paying back the full amount as soon as you receive your account statement.
Its OK and healthy to splurge once in a blue moon 🙂 We work hard for our Happiness aint we…:-)
The amount that one will be saving will be less initially but if this habit is instilled in us, we will end up saving big.
Also if you invest this amount saved , lets assume Rs.1000 every month for next 20 years, you will get whopping Rs 10 lacs approximately which you never planned to save. This will be a jackpot.
“Aakhir Boond Boond se hi to Ghara bharta hai” So pledge to start saving from today 🙂