What is your best money saving tip?

Published: March 30, 2014 at 5:07 pm

Last Updated on December 21, 2023 at 8:48 pm

What is your best money saving tip? What practice has significantly reduced expenses for you?

Here is a compilation of responses from members of the facebook group, Asan Ideas for Wealth. Please do add your money-saving tip in the comments section.

Ashal Jauhari (read his interview here)

  • There are only 2 kinds of people in the world.1. who first make the expense and then only save whatever is leftover.
    2. Who first make savings and invest the same and then try to live whatever is left over.
    Budgeting is required for category 1 people. Not for category 2 people.
  • Dosti Pakki Kharcha apnaapna. Frienship is OKbut each one ‘ll pay his/her individual expense.
  • Always visit the mall with a pre-planned list to avoid unwanted purchases.

 Swapnil Kendhe


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  • Shaving at home, quit smoking, using 2G internet, and tracking daily expenses in Excel. This has reduced my expenses by 5K per month.

Ramakrishna Sripathy

  • 1st, I have a sheet for my daily expenses, takes 5 mins a day max & every month I spend 1-2 hrs at end ofmonth to analyse it. next, I follow income-saving = expense, for monthly provisions etc, we make a list & buy/stock rather than buy every week.
  • buying vegetables/greens from roadside vendors/wholesale/farmer direct outlets is better than from air-conditioned vegetable shops – healthy & cheaper. no compromise on quality of veggies.
  • check out this course for more of “irrational actions” we do : https://class.coursera.org/behavioralecon-002
  • another means of saving/investment I do : I claim all the medical/lta/petrol/telephone allowances which comes to a good number at the end of the year (FY) . so once i get the amount, i put it in PPF in the 1st week of april itself.

Vinoth

  • The best tip I’d say is, don’t follow others in areas you don’t need to.
    That Neighbour might have a car and you don’t, but
    a) you do not have to travel as much,
    b) he probably has family wealth to spend or does not want to retire early like you or is naive about savingsThis is more difficult when applied to one’s partner, as he/she might have different wants. But it needs to be explained to your significant other, with some good analogies, and trying to convert their emotional wants, to practical needs.

Thennarasu Narayanasamy

Ayush Patkar

  • I too have learned to trim my hair and beard at home. I also do my own laundry. I get all my medicines from Care Pharmacy which gives 11% discount on the final bill. I have switched to a postpaid plan in my mobile phone so that way i save at least 400-500 bucks per month cause i make STD calls a lot. I have downgraded DTH pack cause i do not watch TV at all! I tracked expenses for 3 years in a row and then i got terribly frustrated and i stopped doing it. Now i only make sure that i save enough and then go for monthly expenses.

Deepak R Khemani

  • A better option to healthkartplus is www.medguideindia.com all options of drugs with brands/generics/combination. superb site check drug-compare prices with generics and then buy.

Jeetu Jordan

  • One line from Ashal Jauhari which cut my life long expenses when ever you buy any stuff just ask yourself ” what you want and what you need”

Madhusudan Kota

  • Expense manager app is very useful for tracking expenses
  • I found out that buying shampoo sachets is more economical than using a bottle.

Vignesh Bhaskar

  • My father buys some medicines thru normal local outlets and my company provides a discount of 10 percent on all medicines from appollo pharmacy. Every IT company has a tie up now a days with many. As we are using ATM we can check the expenses there itself. I don’t calculate much on that expenses part as long as I am doing my sip.

Sridhar Sattiraju

  • here are infinite ways to cut your expenses but I will give a finite laundry list:
    1. Books – because I buy in hordes and suffer from a disease called Sundoku – which means one buys more books than what he reads, I found a way to procure my books from distributors at one-third mark-down – this I have been doing since my 12th class.
    2. Become bald early – this alone has reduced my trips to the Barber by a third. In my twenties, I used to go to barber once in a fortnight. Now I go to the barber once in two months. I cannot cut my hair, because I can’t seem to find it. My barber knows.
    3. I buy medicines on discount from the wholesale markets and always drive a hard bargain.
    4. Ditto for groceries – buy it from the biggest wholesalers in town. Vegetables I buy from the farmer’s bazaar called Rytu Bazaar.
    5. Having a cook at home can cut down your restaurant bills by 75 per cent. We used to go out and eat once in a week, now we go out only when our cook skips work.
    6. Entertainment – films are a big hole because we graduated from single-screen to multiplex entertainment. Because I review films for part-time living, my honorarium helps me recover the movie expense. A better way is to reduce your impulse viewing and go for movies selectively.  The rest can be more or less seen on channels within 100 days of the movie’s release.
    7. Petrol – plan your visits, work from home, carpool. Do anything to rationalise your petrol cost. We fired our driver and brought down our expense by Rs.12000 pm. Now we hire a driver on need basis for four hours duty – works remarkably well.
    8.Healthcare expenses – I have realised that preventive healthcare is the best. But some expenses have to be non-discretionary to prevent a big hole in your pocket in later years. Hitting a gym at Rs.2000 pm will reduce your long-term medical expenditure. Taking medical insurance even when you are in group medical care of your employer helps to preserve the continuity. There is a statistic that says that 63 per cent of all medical expenditure incurred by a person occurs in the last year of his death. That should seal why we should not worry about this expense while doing our best to postpone the eventuality.
    9. Using a payback card helps to add points to spend the expenses incurred on a credit card.
    10. Having a broad idea about the heads of expenses helps a lot to bring the unnecessary expenses. Have a firm idea whether the expense you incur is a. revenue expense b. discretionary or non-discretionary expense c. asset-building expense or asset-depleting expense d. an expense that can enrich your business or strengthen your career or meet a happiness need of your family e. an expense that is avoidable or doesn’t need too much of head-breaking. f. an expense that merely reflects your status or social approval which goes down drain after the moment g. any expense that could add or reduce an income
    11. Buying an Ipad definitely reduced my mag-buying or book buying. Digitalising all the content I want to read now on IPad has saved me atleast Rs.25000 pm. I funnel all these expense savings into a savings account meant for holidays. Because an expense saved is incentive for holiday.
    12. Car-buying. This is an area I don’t compromise on what others feel. I just upgraded to a second modified Wagon-R after nine years of plying successfully. Picking a car that gives good mileage and saves lakhs of rupees on spares and maintenance is worth more than buying cars for the looks or status. I bought a Wagon-R nine years back for Rs.3.50 lacs. I traded in recently for Rs.1.90 lacs and paid the same for a brand new car of same model having incurred less than Rs.30,000 during the whole of 9 yrs.
    13. Using power-saving equipment and power intelligently is the biggest expense-saver. Whenever climate changes from winter to summer, don’t use heater and AC simultaneously. When summer ends, don’t use heater too soon. Use sunlight wherever possible including scope for solar appliances.
    14. Well, lastly, don’t worry about expenses all the time. Work on the capacity-building aspects and incur all expenses in that direction. Then you will never feel like sweating the small stuff. This is my last hard-learnt lesson. Happy Spending.

A K Anand

  • Fuel, I feel, is the biggest thing one should target at saving. If done properly, one can save a lot.
  • One thing I always insist on doing – Bargain, bargain, and bargain. I think that it is a very good money-saving tip. Why, even George Bernard Shaw did it in his time also! Read on – In a train there was a hoity toity lady with him. He asked her what she does. Reply – I am a socialite into high fashion. Shaw says – will you sleep with me for a million pounds. She says – Yes. Shaw says – what about for ten pounds? She angrily replies – what do you think I am – a common whore? Shaw says – what you are has been established. I am only negotiating the price!! SO ALWAYS BARGAIN, ALWAYS NEGOTIATE. Come what may. After all, you are only saving your hard-earned money.

Dr. A K Singh

  • Avoid carrying your Credit card, or even Debit card while visiting shopping center’s or Mall’s. Only cash will kind off restrict your spending habits.
  • Switch to bicycle.. you will save money on fuel & also on health (directed at me!)
  • Bargaining with the vegetable seller who sells directly from the farm, is not worth. I am always amazed when I see rich ladies spend so much money on lavish parties/kitties/lipstick/& all those shit, but they bargain for 2Rs, 5Rs from poor vegetable sellers (who barely make Rs100/200 per day).

Ravi Kiran Monigari

  • I reduced my expenses by around 1k per month by implementing good driving techniques. Now I get 26+ KMPL on my Maruti Ritz. I use to get 17 to 19 earlier, then I started implementing few techniques then my mileage never went down 26KMPL.
  • I follow few basic tips that everyone knows but tends to ignore them:

    1. Be smooth with the controls, treat the accelerator and brake pedals like you’re giving them a massage.
    2. Avoid using clutch in maximum occasions, and when required a soft touch is sufficient in most cases.
    3. dont shift gears frequently, be on a constant gear. If vehicle is throttling dont drag it on same gear, instead shift to lower gear.
    4. Switch off engine at signals, I made it a habit to switch off engine at signals, for sure it makes difference in overall mileage.
    5. Use AC only when necessary, try to breath fresh air
    6. Fill in petrol during early morning time before 8am (density of fuel will be more in cold conditions)
    7. Calculate mileage readings from Full tank to Full tank basis
    8. Dont try to overdrive unnecessarily. We have a tendency that if Autowala is trying to overtake a car, the car will suddenly jump in speed, try to avoid it and let him(autowala) go.
    9. dont accelerate during downhill, go in neutral -disagreement about this! Poovannan Seeni  states that it is risky (along Dr. A K Singh) and in fact fuel  inefficient! Please do your own research.
    10. Try avoiding acceleration during uphill(not steep uphill), go in 1st gear without acceleration. You will observe that a car moves even during uphill without acceleration
    11. In bumper to bumper to traffic situation, dont use brake and clutch for standstill. Better shift to neutral and pull of your legs from clutch and just use brake.
    12. Always switch to Instant Mileage calculator meter on your dashboards, it will give instant reading of mileage at any given point time. Keep this value in mind while accelerating.
    13. Take your car to visit its doctor(workshop) for servicing at regular intervals, delay in servicing can cost to one’s pocket and also decreases fuel efficiency
    14. Check tyre pressure at regular intervals, low on pressure decreases fuel efficiency.

    Im using Maruti Ritz ZDi from 18 months and I made a habit of following these rules from Nov’2013 and could see drastic change in mileage. Please check my FB profile, I have made a thread to note my monthly mileage and I made it public so those who are not on my friends list can also view

Sunderarajan Padmanabhan

  • I try to ensure that lights and fans are switched off when i leave a room. it not only saves some money for me, but could also be saving a few tigers in the bargain!

Over to you: What is your best money saving tip?

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