I changed my lifestyle recently.  I reduced my expenses to minimize my expense.  I worked on many things to archive that.  There were two major things I worked on to minimize my expenses, which were transport and food.

Transport

I stopped driving.  Heck, this saved me tonnes of money.  In stead of taking public transport or biking, I walked.  Walking is free.  After walking for couple of weeks, I feel healthier.  My blood pressure decreased.  I woke up earlier so that I can reach the destination in time.  I had better sleep quality compared to before as I was really exhausted.  Is it the reason people always say that poorer people are healthier?  I also enjoy what I saw during the walk, the people, the scene and the accidents.

Walking also brought risks to me.  Not everywhere had a sidewalk for pedestrian, which meant that I had to walk on the street.  I also had to cross the road to get to other side of the road, and there were many reckless drivers.  Sometimes when I was in rush, I tend to break the rules by not waiting for the traffic light.

However I discovered something.  As walking takes more time than biking, taking public transport, and definitely driving is much more way faster than walking.  My daily production reduced as I have less time.  I spent more time on walking.  This proved that “Time is Money”.

Food

I love dining out.  I love to try different restaurant, different dishes, and enjoying the culture differences.  Money is the ticket for all the nice food.  When I looked at my past expenses, the contribution to food was more than 70%.  I came to realize that I was very willing to spend on good food (not junk food).  Then I worked out a plan to overcome this problem.  I cooked myself.  I learnt a lot by buying my own food from the market.  I compare prices, quality and quantity.  I came to realize that cheaper things can be better things too.

I don’t like to cook complicated food.  Simple is nice.  Cooking soup was my favourite as it required not much ingredients, skills, nor time.  All I needed was a tastebud to ensure the taste of the soup was okie.  Another benefit of cooking soup was that I could cooked a large pot, and just left it there to eat for the next couple days.  My soup was definitely healthy, as I had both meat and veges in it, and less salts.

I also fried vegetables to eat, with olive oil.  Olive oil is really expensive compared to other oil.  I realized that there were many different types of olive oils.  For example, extra-virgin, virgin, and pure olive oil.  I’m not sure what is the difference between them, but I was told not to use the extra-virgin oil for frying purposes.

Sports

I used to go gym and swimming.  I paid for both of them.  Then I quited the membership and I didn’t have to pay for them.  In stead of going gym or swimming, I go jogging.  I jog around my neighbourhood, looking like an idiot.  I met a lot of people in my neighbourhood.  I breathed in fresh air, and it’s way better than what you smelled in the gym.  But deep inside me I still prefer swimming.

There were also many other things I did to minimize my expenses, such as switching off all the lights in the house at night, dry clothes without using dryer but under the sun, etc.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 7:42 am and is filed under Personal Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.