When times are tight, everything appears expensive.
You think twice or three times before eating at that restaurant.
You visualize how many meals you can have instead of buying that shirt.
You search high and low for the best store to do photo stating at a good price.
You wash your clothes once a week at the laundry mat to save money.
Penny pinching is cool and all. But do you know what’s cooler? Being dollar wise instead.
The same amount of time and attention it takes to save a few cents and dollars is the same amount of time and attention it takes to save tens and hundreds of dollars.
Think about more efficient ways to save money and more of it with more strategic long-term thinking.
Here’s how:
1) Get a good postpaid plan with a lot of data.
Admit it, the things we won’t leave the house without are our wallets, smartphone and keys.
When we use our phones, we use it to check our Facebook or Instagram. And that requires an internet connection.
You can rely on public WiFi but it is better to rely on yourself.
If you don’t do online gaming and watch a fair amount of YouTube videos daily, 20GBs of data is fine for most people. You wouldn’t need to subscribe to landline broadband at all.
Your connection would be with you wherever you go.
2) Get audiobooks instead of the physical ones.
Unless you are a serial bookworm, audiobooks are a far better option for those who want the knowledge without the risk of falling asleep.
Audiobooks are probably the most underrated resource at the moment.
It saves A LOT of time.
When you commute to work, or doing chores, or walking to have dinner, all the time you have that you would have listened to music, you could have finished a book in a week.
Did I mention this saves A LOT of time?
Growing up, we were all used to sitting and listening to our teachers and watching TV. Now, we do it on our phones.
Listening to a book while your eyes are occupied somewhere else makes the entire process seamless and effortless.
Physical books get heavy once you have a few. Transporting them when you move around isn’t convenient either. Plus, the resell value isn’t good too.
3) Get a good laptop & smartphone
There is always cringe when we hear that someone got a laptop for a little too much money.
For some people, they are spending too much money on a laptop as they don’t create value with it and they bought it just because people say it is the best or because it is cool.
When it comes to things that you spend MOST OF YOUR TIME on, it is best to get the better option.
The speed and quality of use makes a huge difference on how much more you would enjoy your daily task and your productivity.
Settling for the cheaper alternative may seem smarter at first but after a few months of usage, you’d wish you paid a little more for the better one instead of buying another model because you are dissatisfied.
Trust top performers on this.
4) Shop online for lower prices
Picture this:
You are at an area with 3 big shopping malls and you are looking for an item you never bought before, let’s say it was a particular luggage bag. Your old one was broken after years of use.
You ask the concierge where are the shops that sell luggage bags.
There are 3, one on each floor. You could take the elevator, but it is really slow.
So you take the escalator instead.
You go to the first one, the price was higher than you expected.
You go to the second one, there was one left, but it looked damaged and “unwanted.”
You go to the third one and they don’t have it.
Do you just settle and buy the first one? Or do you go to the other 2 malls in the area and try again?
The top performers among us, would either hire someone else to search for them, or just shop online while they are heading to a business meeting.
Price comparison sites can help you look for the lowest price without the need to “Open in new tab” for every site you see on Google.
It saves you time and money.
The best part is that you don’t need to take time out of your day to travel and find and pay for parking on a busy weekend. You can have it delivered to your doorstep or your parent’s house. Some even offer the option to only pay them when they have reached you (COD – Cash on Delivery).
To take it a step further, look for coupons and promo codes.
All you Uber & Grab users – don’t deny it. You use the ones you already used in hopes that it still works, if it doesn’t, you look for new ones.
If you shop a lot online, coupon codes help a lot in getting you discounts and offers you wouldn’t have known had you not looked for it.