Frugal Pinoy

With most meat and fish costing more than P100/kilo, I can’t help but ask myself if it’s cheaper to be a vegetarian.  Check out the prices from various markets/stores below:

Balintawak Market in Quezon City:

Tomatoes (1 kilo) – P25
Kalamansi (1 kilo, big size) - P20
Carrots (1 kilo) – P30
Potatoes (1 kilo) – P28
String beans (per super fat bunch) – P10
Lettuce (1 big head) – P15
Saba (biggest size) – P1.80 per piece
Coconut (biggest size) – P15
Squash (medium size) – P20 per piece
Pechay (1 kilo) – P20
Broccoli (per kilo) – P40
Pineapple (medium size) – P15
Source: MoneySmarts

At the Marikina market:

Eggplant - P50/kilo
Red onions - P82/kilo
Ampalaya - P80/kilo
Squash - P10/ large slice
Okra - P32/kilo
Broccoli (one large stem with leaves) - P 48
Potatoes - P 28/kilo
String Beans - P 20/kilo
Lettuce - P20-P28 per head or P60 per kilo

At Makro:

Eggplant - P49/kilo (for a 2 kg pack)
Cucumber - P39/kilo (for a 2kg pack)
Ampalaya - P72/kilo (for a 2kg pack)
Squash - P17/kilo (for 3kg and above)

What would make vegetarianism exponentially cheaper is that if you buy in bulk and store most of your purchases in a chest freezer.  But not all vegetables freeze well - especially those delicate veggies that have a lot of water.  For example, you shouldn’t freeze lettuce, cabbages, and other leafy veggies, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  I’ve found a very helpful page with instructions on how to freeze specific vegetables.  Here’s an excerpt on how to freeze eggplant:

 Cut into slices, sprinkle with salt and allow to stand 30 minutes. Drain off excess liquid and fry gently in butter or margarine until just tender. Cool and pack into plastic containers. Seal and label. Keeps up to 3 months.
(Source: Freezing Vegetables from Garden Guides)

Vegetable prices may be cheaper than meat, but there are some ways in which vegetarianism might actually cost more.  It especially depends on the types of vegetables you buy, among other things.

When is it more expensive to be a vegetarian?

• When you’re shopping for a household that can’t live without meat.  For example, a family of 5 where only 1 or 2 members will be vegetarian.  In this case, buying vegetables for the vegetarians and mostly meat for the omnivores will just add to the overall household expenses (and overall cooking hassle!).
• When you’re dining out.  Generally, vegetarian restaurants tend to be more expensive than their non-vegetarian counterparts (not always, but usually).  This is probably because they are seen as “specialty” restaurants.  However, if you eat a vegetarian dish in a regular restaurant, the veggie dish might be cheaper compared to the other meat-based meals they offer.

So, the answer to my question is: it depends.  If you’re simply feeding yourself or an entire household that is willing to make the switch, then it’s definitely cheaper, especially if you’re buying in bulk and freezing the vegetables.  In my case, I have yet to convince my entire household of 4 to switch completely, but I am making more vegetable purchases than usual.

Do you think it’s cheaper to be a vegetarian?  How much of your diet is made up of veggies?

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In this blog, we’ve already defined frugality.  Basically, it’s getting the best value for your money.   Value could mean quality, saved time, and convenience.  In the end, you’ll be the judge of that value.

But after defining frugality, I asked myself this question:

So what?

So what if I save money?  So what if I spend less on an item?  Does this make my life better?  Am I a smarter person because of it?  Am I being kuripot for the sake of being kuripot?

It’s probably time to talk about the reasons why I’m frugal in the first place.

I’m frugal because…

 … I want to save money to spend it elsewhere.  It’s true - I cut corners as much as possible so I can spend my money on other things.  This includes the following:

• Travel.  I want to travel as much as possible.  But doing so costs money.
• Hobbies.  I love to read, paint, and build model airplanes.
• Dreams.  Learning how to fly a plane is one of my dreams.  It’s also one of my dreams to build a house in the province.  Of course, if I’m going to turn my dreams into reality, I need to have the resources for them.
• Retirement.  Spending my old age relying on allowance from my kids and a measly pension terrifies me.  I want to live my later years as comfortably as possible.

To make these things happen, I need to spend money on them.  My frugality allows me to save thousands of pesos each month to reallocate into these 4 different things.  If I just bought groceries at the convenience store (expensive) and didn’t look for deals and bargains, I’d be able to spend less on these things I really, really want to spend on.

… I don’t think it’s logical to spend more than I have to for an item, unless convenience and time were a factor.  If I can buy an item for P30 at the same quality as buying it for P60, then why spend more?  It just doesn’t make sense to me, unless the 30-peso item is out of the way and hard to get to.

… I want to spend money on things I want without worrying. It’s okay to spend on big ticket items if you are truly passionate about them (like a technophile wanting an iPhone, or a coffee afficionado spending on exotic coffee beans).  However, what’s important is to plan for these things.  It would be very, very sad if the things you are passionate about (whether it’s iPhones or expensive coffee) will drive you into financial trouble. These things are meant to be enjoyed, not to make us more stressed worrying whether we have enough money left for bills.

So frugality is NOT about hoarding money and stashing it in a bank somewhere just to add to your net worth.  It’s about channeling your resources to things that are more worthy of your hard-earned money.  It’s about making independent decisions, and keeping yourself worry-free.

I may lose my job tomorrow, but my frugality has given me peace of mind.  It has also allowed me to step closer to my dreams.  This, my friends, is why I am frugal.

Why are you frugal?  What got you interested in frugality?

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Since I’m tech-inclined, I have a soft spot for gadgets.  Most Filipinos do.  Kaya nga kahit tricycle driver may cellphone.  Once, I even rode a jeep with a TV, DVD player, mp3 player, and one of those portable landlines (you can use it for P5.00 for 3 minutes - how entrepreneurial!) Let’s face it, we’re addicted to gadgets.  But whenever we see a new, shiny gadget that catches our eye and tempts us to empty our wallets, there are a few things we should do:

Do research.  I’ve previously talked about doing online research before buying something.This especially applies to gadgets, where the internet is just crawling with consumer reviews on many tech products.

Play the waiting game. Remember when the Asus EEE PC first came out? Many people got so excited and they just bought one. Now, not only has ASUS made improvements on this product, but several competitors stepped up to the plate and made better, faster, more reliable ultramobile laptops. Now, people are selling their used EEE PCs or internally wishing for a better and newer unit.

The thing is, when a new gadget gets that popular, competing manufacturers will always try to outdo each other - giving you more (and better) choices later on. Plus, the manufacturer will try to fix problems that their first release had. Now, instead of just buying an Asus EEE PC, people who want ultramobile laptops have several brands and models to choose from.

Also, “new” technology gets cheaper when it gets a little older. So waiting a year or so to get that “latest” gadget will usually give you better, less expensive options.

Prioritize features over brands. Instead of thinking “I want a Macbook”, think in terms of features.  You might think you want a Macbook, but does it have the features you need?  A wiser thing to say is “I want a computer that has an 80 GB hard disk, which is enough for my needs, and has a RAM of 1GB and a dual-core processor, so I can multitask”. Mention a feature, followed by why you need it.

Also, when you’re buying expensive gadgets, oftentimes a sizeable percentage of the cost is the brand alone.  This is why you shouldn’t consider brand as a primary criteria for buying a gadget.

For example, did you know that many laptop brands don’t even manufacture their own laptops? ECS (or Elitegroup), MSI, Quanta, Compal, and other lesser-known laptop manufacturers create the basic parts and builds the laptops, while the bigger brands such as Dell, Acer, Compaq just add customizations - if at all - and slap their brand names on the final product. (Additional sources: Manufacturer Relation Matrix, Laptop Worldwide, and Notebook OEM/ODM Relationships)  Although the example I’ve used is for laptops, this can also be applied to several tech products.  Apple doesn’t even manufacture the iPhone!

Really, what it all boils down to is features, reliability, and longevity.  Which is why reading reviews and technical specs of a gadget will be worth more than just buying from the brand that does the most marketing.

Read more »

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I recently wrote an article on passive income for online freelancers over at Web Worker Daily entitled “Passive Income for Web Workers: Is it Realistic?”. Here’s an excerpt:

Here’s an example: a client emailed me recently that an e-book I wrote for him gave him an 800% return of investment. Whatever it was that he paid me, he made 8 times more than that - which is a big deal, because I don’t think I was underselling myself! Of course, he was happy and grateful, but this got me thinking…

What if I wrote and sold that e-book myself? Would I have made as much money? Of course, there are other things to consider apart from simply writing the e-book - I’d have to market it, set up a website, etc. There’s a lot of initial work. But if I had the time or money to invest in something like this, it should be worth considering.

Click here to read the rest of the article, if you’re interested.

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Someone I know is getting married.

On her baby’s baptismal day.

Which, incidentally, is also the baby’s first birthday.

In other words, she’ll be having three celebrations in one - the wedding, their child’s baptism, and the baby’s first birthday.  When she was asked why she made these 3 occasions fall on the same date,she answered “Mas matipid eh!”

Although I can’t argue with that, because it would usually be cheaper to celebrate once for three different occasions, is this something you’d be willing to do?

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First of all, thank you to those who participated in the poll for future Frugal Pinoy topics.  Your votes will help me decide on what personal finance topics to blog about.  You can still vote in case you haven’t.  I’ll probably keep it running for the entire month of July.  If you want to vote, click here.

So far, there have been some votes for passive income and making money online.  Instead of a textbook discussion of these things, I’ll give real-life examples from what my partner and I do to make money online.  If you want a more detailed explanation on these income sources, simply ask me a question via the comment box.

Affiliate programs. Basically, with affiliate programs, you’re trying to sell other people’s products and you get a commission for each sale you make.  The way this usually works is that you place a link on your website to the product you’re selling, and when you make a sale through that link, you get a commission.

There are some networks for affiliate programs such as Commission Junction and E-junkie, which collect several programs for you, and you just select from their database. Here are the affiliate programs I make some money on:

• Zazzle.com.  Basically, you create designs for shirts, mugs, and other items and make money from each sale you make.  Three people have bought the shirts I designed.  Alternatively, you can also sell other people’s designs, but the commission you get will be less (since the creator gets a bigger percentage).  What I like about Zazzle is that they pay you via PayPal.  You can receive payments monthly (if you earn more than $25) or yearly (if you earn less than $25).
• E-Junkie.com.  The payout rate for E-junkie tends to be higher, and I usually select affiliate programs with at least 40% commission.  Like Zazzle, they also pay via PayPal.

Since we’re not yet that serious about affiliate marketing, we only make a few dollars here and there for various affiliate programs.  But if you add up these few dollars, they’re enough to pay for some yearly domain renewals.

Advertising networks.  If you have a website, you can have some space where you’ll put advertisements and you can get paid per click or based on time (per week or per month).  The pay per click ads are usually from networks like Google Adsense or Linkworth.  The ads based on time are often private advertisers who contact you and say something like “I’d like to place an ad on your website for one month”.

We get a nice amount from Adsense each month, especially after we’ve used it on a wide variety of websites.

Contract work.  The bulk of my income comes from contract work, where I do various online jobs for companies abroad and I get paid for them.  It takes more time than the above methods, but only roughly 9 to 15 hours per week.  Mainly, my partner and I are online writers, but we also get some design work.  Here are the blogs I write for:

• Pimp Your Work.  This is my main blog.  The payment structure is that I get a base pay each month, with a traffic bonus of $1.65 per 1,000 page views.  My traffic bonus is roughly just as much as my base pay.  The topic for this blog is workday efficiency.
• The AppGap.  This is another blog which pays me per post.  It’s about Web 2.0 and the future of the workplace.
• Web Worker Daily. This is a blog aimed at web workers like me, like The AppGap, it pays per post.

Among these online moneymaking opportunities, the affiliate programs and advertising networks tend to be more passive.   However, the set-up will take up some time and money.

I’m going to talk more about these online income opportunities through Frugal Pinoy. So if you want to know more, just stay tuned

Have you tried making money online?  How’s it been so far?  If you haven’t tried it yet, is it something you’re interested in?  Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

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I’ve installed a small survey for you readers, so I can know what topics you want to read about on Frugal Pinoy in the future. You can answer below or on the sidebar to your right. It only takes 2 seconds to vote and let me know what you need from this blog, so please chime in If you don’t like any of the options, please just leave a comment to suggest a different topic.

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I’ve been a freelance writer for the past four years, making money almost exclusively online. The corporate world is definitely not for my personality, so I did everything I could to avoid it. Along the way, I’ve learned several useful money lessons that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

Bill early, pay late. This took me a while to learn, and it’s more important especially if you have very busy clients who remember to pay you only a week after you send your invoice. Now, I bill them on the 1st of the month, while I pay for business expenses (contractors, web hosting, subscriptions, etc.) mid-month. By practicing this, you’re making sure that you already have enough funds when it’s time to pay for business expenses.

Diversify skills and sources of income. I didn’t just depend on my writing, especially when I was starting out. I also did a lot of design work, search engine optimization, edited videos, some data entry jobs, sold some of my artwork, and joined ad networks such as Google Adsense. Having various sources of income ensures that you always had an alternative venture in case your main gig ran a bit dry.

Also, as a freelancer, the diverse skill set allowed me to upsell services to clients (”Do you want some new graphics to go with the articles I’m writing for you?”), and I would become their go-to person for most of their web needs.

Be frugal with your time, not just money. One of the big problems I had with my first years of freelancing was that I let it consume so much of my time. I would work longer and harder than 9 to 5 ‘ers, thinking that this was the only way for me to make enough money. Eventually, I became a productivity blogger over at Pimp Your Work, and had to learn some time management skills. Now, I have made myself efficient enough to only work 9 to 15 hours a week, and can now enjoy the freedom that freelancing promises.

Have a padded emergency fund. I probably sound like a broken record since I talk about emergency funds over and over. But it was a real lifesaver during those months when I would earn only P12,000 and had to feed and pay for a household of 3 people, and my tuition too.

Don’t undersell yourself. I used to charge $5.00 for a 500 word article. That’s okay as a starting point just to build up your folio, but I stayed around that price range for one or two years, even after I was getting so many happy testimonials from clients who kept referring me to others (meaning: my work was worth more than $5). Hindi ka talaga mabubuhay kung $5.00 per hour ang singil mo. Especially since I had dependents. It took me a while to realize that people aren’t just paying for the words I write, they’re paying for an hour of my life and the unique insight I bring to the table. Does that really just cost $5?

Competing with others on the basis of price alone isn’t a sound business model. Someone will always be cheaper than you! So I competed on quality and experience, and can now turn down work that I don’t find interesting.

Every job title, every industry presents its own unique money lessons. What are the money lessons you’ve learned as a result of your work? Please share them with other Frugal Pinoy readers

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In the previous article on How to Spend Less on Gas, MoneySmarts blogger Salve Duplito left this comment:

someone once demo’ed to me a gadget put on cars to reduce gas expenses. do you think that’s safe and effective?

While I don’t know exactly what kind of gadget she was referring to, I did stress out this point: Before buying a product, do some internet research. In fact, the more expensive something is or the larger its effect on your life, the more you should do research on it. By doing some research, you’ll get to know a product’s price range, as well as its quality/effectiveness.

Here are some real life examples:

• If you want to buy a new appliance, you can look at prices and models from the Abenson website, the SM Appliance website, BX Appliances, and the Makro website. After finding some units within your price range, simply type in the model’s name into your favorite search engine (such as Google). For example “Sanyo SW-75ST washing machine”. Odds are, you’ll find out more about the product this way (such as dimensions, more detailed specifications, etc.). If you don’t find much about the model, research the brand, type of appliance, and add the word ‘review’ . For example, type ‘Sanyo washing machine reviews’ to find existing customer reviews on Sanyo branded washing machines.
• If you want a new cellphone, research the web for reviews. Again, just type the model name, followed by the word ‘review’. For example, I typed ‘Nokia 3220 review’ into Google and got this very helpful review as the first result.
• For a new car, motorcycle, or scooter, you can also use the same technique above. Except, personally, I love hanging out at MotorcyclePhilippines. People there are very friendly and helpful, plus their classifieds section lists some used vehicles.
• For tech gadgets such as cameras and computer gear, you can go to the Digital Photographer Philippines forum, ReviewRoundup, or TipidPC. The Digital Photographer Philippines and TipidPC forums are filled with several users who can give you their opinion of different products. ReviewRoundup, on the other hand, is a collection of magazine reviews of various tech gadgets.

Here are some additional ways to do online research before buying something:

• Go to online forums and ask people. Most of the time, you’ll find that many people online would be more than happy to tell you what they think of a certain product. Just go ahead and ask. I’ve already mentioned a few forums above that you can start with.
• Research “How to buy” that product. For example, if it’s your first time buying a vacuum cleaner or a refrigerator, you probably don’t know what to look for. By typing “how to buy a vacuum cleaner” or “how to buy a refrigerator” into Google, you can make a more educated purchase (if you’re curious, here are the results: how to buy a vacuum cleaner, and how to buy a refrigerator).
• Look for existing product reviews from consumers. I know I already mentioned this, but it’s very important. Try to read at least 3 product reviews, if possible.

Doing your research online takes less than 30 minutes. (Unless you’re on dial-up, that is!) This is the difference between making a good purchase and buying something you’ll regret. By simply doing some research int he beginning, you’ll be saving yourself some money and headaches in the long run.

For some reason, doing internet research before buying something isn’t uso in the Philippines - even for people who are online everyday! But doing this is so practical and useful, and takes so little time. There’s no excuse not to do it. With all the information available to us for FREE, there’s no reason why we should spend thousands of pesos on an appliance or device that will give in within a month or so.

Have you ever tried doing some online research before making a purchase? What was your experience like?

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Ever notice how your money doesn’t go as far anymore when it comes to gas for your car?  The rising cost of petroleum is all over the news lately, and it’s not a surprise that many people want to know how to spend less on gas.

In a previous post, I recommended walking or biking to a location.  But there’s more you can do to save your gas money.  Here are some additional gas-saving tips:

Go slower. By going slower, you reduce the gas needed by your car to go from one destination to another.  With all the traffic jams in Metro Manila, this won’t be hard to accomplish.

Take public transportation.  If you’re going to an area that’s easily reachable by commuting, and it’s a beautiful day outside and you’re not planning on buying large bags of groceries or something like that, why not take public transportation?

Telecommute or move closer to your office.  If you can get a telecommuting agreement with your employer, that will cut down a lot of expenses - not just gas.  You don’t have to buy your lunch outside or dress in office clothes all the time.  However, not all employers look at telecommuting in a positive light (even if it saves them money as well).  If that’s your case, you can opt to move to an apartment nearer your office.

Don’t become picky when it comes to parking spaces. Park in the first space you find, unless you have compelling reasons not to do it (your car won’t fit, for example).

Find out where cheaper gas is sold.  Gas prices aren’t constant all over the Philippines, you can save some money by finding a station that sells gas at a more affordable price.  The next time you go around the city, be aware of the prices that gas stations are advertising and make a mental note of which ones are cheaper and within your usual route. AngGAStos is a website that aims to record how much gas costs in different areas in the Philippines.  You can look at it as a reference (and don’t forget to share your own information as well).

Make your car weigh as light as possible.  The less your car weighs, the less gas it requires to run at a certain speed.  Inspect your trunk, ba