frugal

I went through my previous post on why students should save money during their study years, and I thought what better entry to complement it if not on how to save money. So this is a compilation of some ideas I have. Feel free to add yours 🙂

1) Know why you need to save money. One reason is described here

2) Understand that being frugal is not cheapskate. Don’t be ashamed to be frugal. You have to do what you need to do.

3) Never spend more than you have. That’s the only way to lose money

4) Be very careful on the day your loan banked in. It is a vicious cycle. You had finished off your loan and you’re living frugally, but when you received that money.. the chances are you will spend it innocently just for the sake of revenge 🙂

5) Befriend frugal minded friends. Friends are the closest we had during studying and usually we will do everything together. If your friends like to hang out at Starbuck, then I predict it will be a long way for you to save. 🙂

6) Avoid debt at all cost. We can never get everything in life, something are never meant for us.

7) Credit card is a no no. The golden rule is if you can’t afford it, you should save another couple of month to buy it.

8] Only buy used text book.

  • Make friends with your seniors, maybe they can give it to you for free
  • Always check with the seniors that had taken the course. Ask them, “Is the book really that important?”
  • Make use of the library. If the text book is not that important, just borrow it from the library

9) Stop for a while when you are at the gadget shop. Seriously, when it comes to gadget, think, rethink and think again. Do you REALLY need it? Hm.. since we are at it, think again at every shop, will you?

10) Shop smart. Shop only when it’s on sale. But of course you must first eye the items to know the price before sale. Some sellers markup their price prior the sale. So it may look like 70% but it is actually only 20%

11) Stop smoking. Just imagine how much you can save if you quit. It’s a hard thing I know. Surf and check tips on how to quit. They may work for you. One friend of mine actually stopped after he had smoked until he puke 🙂

12) Exercise regularly. A healthy body is less expensive to maintain. And I’m not just talking about your studying years. It will be a lifetime reward.

13) Eat healthy & avoid junkfood. Everyone knows that junk food has no value, but we still ate it. It’s time to stop.. especially when we want to save that cents for our future.

14) Keep yourself busy. Play badminton or futsal, or join martial art. When you are busy, you will have less time to wander around the mall and suddenly come back with 12 bags of clothes

15) Live without motorcycle or car. Unless you live very far from the campus, try to avoid having one. It is convenient, true. But if you can walk or cycle to class, why not? You will be healthier definitely.

  • Carpool is always an excellent idea

16) Be cheap with handphone usage.

  • Downgrade postpaid to prepaid.
  • Only call if you really need to.
  • Two words – SMS and email

17) Cook / Share a meal. I’ve actually done the experiment. Cooking own meal is always cheaper than buying the meal. And I even cooked and bought the same food for accuracy 🙂

18) Always check for ways to have fun without spending excessively. Instead of going to cybercafe playing online game, maybe you can ask skilled friends to network some computers and play with your friends indoors.

19) Less going out. The more we go out, the more we spend. Period. So maybe instead of going out every weekend to buy several items, combine the whole errand and do one shot once a month

20) Start some business. Maybe you know how to repair computers so put up some advertisement, and just start offering the service. Remember, be very careful choosing the business. We want to make money not lose it 🙂

21) Do part time job on long holiday. Besides earning a bit extra, you will get a lot of working experience such as networking, business etc

Final Action
So after all that you finally have a few dollars saved, what do you do? It will be a terrible thing if you go out and spend it all. The final action you should do is deposit it in the bank. (22)

– I wonder –
Any other tips you think may be useful?


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Soon going to be a father, I have done quite a lot of research and book reading on what to expect. Especially all the how-tos around the baby. However, these tips I received via email are really enlightening 🙂 See it for yourself. Credit to DaPocket

baby1

baby2

baby3

baby4

baby5

baby6

baby8

baby9

Enjoy your Sunday guys!!


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February

Summary – Follow Up

One thing I heard from my manager that I will never forget is the word – “Follow Up”. Not because it is any important but because he almost always scream the word to me. 🙂

However that word really is one of the most important word in management. You want to be a manager, you have to practise the word. You start a project, you will need to do follow up even though your project had been 2 years completed. Check through if there are any complication, arising issue, hidden problem etc.

And once you’ve done that, plan your immediate action to address the problem and finetune the whole operation.

Lastly.. can you guess what’s the next thing to do? You guess it right.. Follow up again.

It is with great pleasure however, for me to announce that the above description is actually just an introduction to today’s post.

I actually want to ask you this question. How’s that 2008 Resolution going?

Some had resolve to lose some weight, some may want to start a new hobby. Mathematically speaking, we should actually be 1/12 successful with the resolution by February 1st. So what about you guys? If you can put a percentage on your resolution achievement, what percentage would that be?

A working example – your 2008’s resolution is to save $6000 as your emergency fund. And after checking on February 1st, the amount saved is $400. You can now say that your resolution is now 6.7% achieved. Congratulation! 🙂

I’m sure you know where I’m going with this one. The most important step is NOT the percentage of achievement. It can be 0% or 10%. The most important step is actually “FOLLOW UP”. We need to check back every now and then on the progress of our resolution.

The progress can be positive or negative, no matter. But when we follow up we will know our status and hopefully after that we can structure our plan to get back on track.

– I wonder –
What’s your resolution’s achievement percentage?

————- Personal Note ———–
It’s sad, but I have to say that my percentage is almost zero. It’s not a total zero, since some of the resolution involves this blog progress. And I’m quite happy with that now.

So this post will serve as a reminder for me. Warning Letter #1.

Next week will be going to be busy busy busy. I will drive back to Kedah (about 550km from here) and start the preparation for DaPocket’s wedding. I will be official photographer of the event. Need to brush up my skills then 🙂


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It’s that time again to recap what has been discussed here in January 2008. What a great start it has been. 🙂

5 Most Commented Articles

Banji’s Must Read Article

For the whole 25 articles of January, you can proceed to the archive

Blog’s progress

  • The blog had been redesigned on the 17th. It had undergone a few design in its entire life, but so far.. I’m the happiest with this one. Unless something go horribly wrong, I will stick to this one 🙂
  • If you notice, there is a check button just below the “SUBMIT COMMENT” button with the option to notify you of followup comments via email. I’m sure most of you are already familiar with it, but for the benefit of those who don’t.. if you check the button and submit your comment, you will receive any new comments to the post via your email, which generally mean you will not be left out in the discussion. Try it.. Of course you can unsubscribe anytime you want via the email

Monthly’s Personal Note
Brought the mrs for a baby scan and for the first time seeing my baby. He/She is so active almost like waving to me. 🙂 The doctor was almost certain that she’s a she.. I haven’t stopped smiling since 🙂

My mother’s BP had reduced to 130/90 which is still on the high side but clearly an improvement. Alhamdulillah

Conclusion
It has been an exciting month. A very good start in 2008. February is going to be even more interesting especially with the biggest event of all, DaPocket’s wedding on the 8th of February.

Allow me to be the first to congratulate you on this 🙂 “Selamat Pengantin Baru!”


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