8 things I try to do to live more frugally

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An article by Grad money matters got me thinking about this as well so I decided to write my own article about this as well.

If you remember the first time you ever received your first paycheck, you will understand that spending that hard earned money can be quite painful. Its so much easier to spend you parents money when you were a kid. My first paycheck was actually from McDonalds when I worked at Ala Moana in honolulu when I was 15 years old. I worked for only 6 weeks but I managed to make about 400 dollars from working about 20 hour weeks part time during the summer. A whopping 5.25 per hour pay with the perk of 50% off anything at McDonalds. Never quite understood why they didn’t just give us free food, especially when they threw away so much food during the day. Did you know that they have a fresh rule where they are supposed to throw out fries if it hasn’t been sold in 8 minutes?

Now that I’m actually making a salary as a resident, I try to be a little more frugal. Here are the 10 things that I do to try to live a more frugal lifestyle.

1. I try to cook for myself as often as I can. I actually got teased at by one of my friends who told me that she doesn’t know that many guys that actually cook for themselves but given the fact that if you eat out every night or buy take out, it takes a big chunk of money from your wallet and add pounds to your waist! I usually keep it simple with a meat, fish, chicken with rice and veggies that end up being kimchee since I’m korean. I freeze grapes for dessert and sometimes treat myself to McFlurries at the McDonalds across the street. Breakfast is usually just a protein bar, cereal, coffee and lunch is provided usually by the hospital.

2. take advantage of free coffee. My apartment complex has free coffee that I use to fill up my free travel mug that I got from a pharm rep last week. I can always fill it after morning conference at the hospital too. I use to buy daily coffee at Dunkin Donuts but if you think about it, it adds up. Check out my article about the Latte factor.

3. limit my energy expenditure. The fact that i’m hawaiian, i’m used to being in hotter climates. This is why I usually leave my room temperature at 80 degrees. I also do not like air conditioning so at night, I open the windows and turn on the ceiling fan. I turn off the central air when I go to work, use compact fluorescent bulbs, turn off unnecessary lights, limit water consumption.

4. I don’t drink bottled water. It is a vice that most people do because they don’t trust the faucet water. I’ll agree that there might be some minor taste weirdness in the water but it all goes away when you use a britta filter.

5. Carpool, limit driving whenever possible. My colleague and I can carpool when we have same events or work related activities that we need to go to. Also, plan your trips accordingly. There are many things you can do to decrease your consumption of gas by checking out this article that I wrote.

6. Think before you buy something. This is a really big deal to stop spending money on useless things. You buy something because “it looks cute” or “you need to have it right now” but think about whether or not next week you look at what you have and will you think that you made a wise decision? That tickle me elmo that you bought because you thought was cute may be just a money drain next week. Or how about those new pair of shoes or even that iphone or ipod.

7. if I buy something I do my fair share of research. Whether it is a big ticket item or a bunch of small things, I try to find coupons, discounts, rebates, price compare as often as I can. Take advantage of sites like ebates in this article. There is also a great article about the 10 websites I like to use to compare shop.

8. I’m not a cheap ass, I spend money on things I enjoy. I think the general rule is to save as much money as you can on the things that you need to do in order to live your day to day life. However, when it comes to the things that you absolutely love, you shouldn’t feel ashamed to spend money on those things. You only have one life to live so there needs to be a balance. The goal is to go into every decision smartly. An example would be if you enjoyed shoes, you should buy shoes that you want but you don’t need to have the fastest computer if you don’t really care about computers except to use it for work and internet access.

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