This article is dedicated to the hard-working Filipinos working in the Philippines or even world wide. If you are one of the millions of Filipino who go to work to either by a regular 9-5 job or shifting schedule, more likely you spend most of your salary in your work allowance or day to day expenses in the office.
Most of us spent 40 hours a week in our work, not including the travel time if we need to commute. Sabi nga ng iba, ‘yung sweldo daw sa gastos lang din napupunta’.
That’s hard. But that’s true. Minsan masakit isipin na ‘isang kahig, isang tuka’ ang marami sa ating mga kababayan.
On this article, I will share some simple tips on how we can save a small amount of money in each of our simple activities while working in the office. You may save a little amount from these tips but over time, it can contribute big enough to your budget.
You should know how to budget by the way. Here are the tips.
Saving Tip#1 Packed your lunch.
This may be old school to some but this is one of the best and proven way to save money if you’re working in the office. I’m one of the few who used to have packed lunch in our office and I’m telling you, this helps a lot.
Let’s have some example. If you buy 1/2 kilo of chicken at home that will cost you around 80-90 pesos. Let’s make it 100 pesos for additional bawang, sibuyas and paminta. You know what we’re cooking right? 😀
Basically, it would only cost you 100 pesos to have a 1/2 kilo of chicken adobo that you can cook for dinner and save some for your packed lunch the next day when you go to the office.
On the other hand, if you chose not to pack your lunch, most likely you will spend at a minimum of around 80 pesos just for a value meal in most of the fast-food restaurants around your office. That is just for one time meal.
You see, you can almost save 80 pesos if your going to bring your lunch. That’s just for a day. 80 pesos x 5 days = 400 pesos. Whew! That’s 400 pesos a week and 1,600 pesos per month. That’s a lot of savings. Wait! I know that’s too exaggerated.
We cannot eat adobo everyday or the same food from dinner last night and same food for lunch the next day. That’s true. And I didn’t tell that. The logic I want to share is, we can really save a lot if we packed our lunch in the office.
Even sometimes and not daily. I hope you get my point. That’s just for chicken, how about when we cook vegetables which we can buy at low price in the market or maybe we can grow in our own backyard?
You tell the difference. Aside from savings, we can make sure that the food we eat is safe and nutritious.
Saving Tip#2 Make your own coffee.
This is also one of the expenses of an office worker. Coffee, coffee and coffee. If your one of those people who are addicted to coffee and need caffeine in their body to maximize productivity, make sure you spend wise on this one.
If you look around on most of the corporate offices today (especially in BPOs), there are a lot of people who used to spend a lot just in coffee.
That cappuccino and espresso in Starbucks costs around 150 pesos. If you do it once everyday in a week, that will cost you 750 pesos in a week. That’s a lot for normal Filipino workers like us.
I’m not saying not to buy coffee in Starbucks, if you can really afford it and not looking to save some pesoses, please go ahead.
But if you are just trying to be ‘in’ and just want to tell your friends in Facebook that you’re in a Starbucks, while on the real world you don’t know HOW TO BUDGET and you don’t have an EMERGENCY FUND, for God sake please stop fooling yourself and other people. Just make your own coffee.
A 3in1 coffee only costs 8-10 pesos in mini stop or 7-11. Actually it costs less in normal sari-sari stores or palengke outside. 1 sachet can give you two mugs of coffee if you’re like me.
It also have many flavors that you can choose from. Same result (caffeine in our body) but a huge difference in our pocket. Ika nga nila, mura na masarap pa. 😀 It’s not an advertisement, ok?
I’m not also affiliated or related to any coffee brand. Just wanna blend some smile. 🙂 So when you come to office next time, make sure you bring your coffee mug. I’m telling you, you can save more than 700 pesos per week.
Saving Tip#3 Watch movie at home.
If you work in the office, more likely than not your office mates will ask you to join them to watch movie in theater.
Learn to ‘say no sometimes‘. It’s ok to hang out with office mates to build camaraderie and friendship but you may opted to other activities that doesn’t need money.
One good example is jogging after office or biking on rest days. Movie ticket costs around 180 pesos. If you used to watched 2 movies every month, that costs you 360 pesos plus you may tempted to buy some snacks and drinks while watching.
I’m not saying do not watch movies at all, if you can afford it, why not? Please skip this tip. But if you really into saving, you can choose to watch those movies at home with your son or daughter or other member of the family.
You’re not only saving money but you’re also spending quality time with them. I usually copy movies from my office mates then watch at home with my wife. This may seems to be more of a personal choice but I hope the idea make sense.
There you go. You’ve now increase the chance of saving money while working in the office by reading this blog. The simple tips above can save you up to a Php 1000 per week if applicable. That’s Php 4000 a month. But it should not end here.
It should not stop in reading, the most important part is to take action.
If you really want to achieve financial independence in the future, you must take actions today. Invest in yourself first by reading articles like this and then applying it to your lives if applicable. To our financial freedom journey, cheers!
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Photo credits: chandita.me, imgarcade.com and nescafe.com.ph
thank you a lot i learned some tips here.hope to read some more.