Day#19: Quit an expensive habit.

Posted by FrugalPinoy on Dec 8, 2009 in 25 Days to Healthier Finances, Frugal Tips | 0 comments

This is Day #19 of “25 Days to Healthier Finances”, a series of blog posts where Frugal Pinoy readers and myself work on 1 task a day to make our financial lives better. Please stay tuned for the next installment of this series, which will be up tomorrow. Here’s today’s installment:

Today’s Task: Quit an expensive habit.

We all have habits. Some of them are healthy while others can be destructive if we do them mindlessly. The truth is that some habits have negative consequences on our finances. While we can live with most of these consequences, there are some cases where we can’t afford them. Here are some examples:

• That (almost) daily morning coffee.
• Smoking.
• Going shopping as therapy.
• Sending forwarded text messages to your entire contact list multiple times a day.
• Dining out with family or friends during payday.
• Buying lunch from fast food chains rather than bringing your own lunch.

But how do you quit a habit? The first thing you should try is to figure out how much it’s costing you. How much do you spend on that habit per week? Per month? Per year?

After doing the math, find out if your income allows for this kind of expense. For example, when I was still a student, I noticed that I bought bottled water and other drinks each day during lunch. This cost me P30 per day, and since I was usually at school 6 times a week, this seemingly minor daily expense cost me at least P700/month. At that time I was probably earning only P9,000/month since I was just starting out as a freelance writer. I was also the breadwinner, which meant that the P700/month was more than I could afford for something as simple as water. Realizing this, I just brought my own bottle to school every day and refilled it at the water fountain.

If your expensive habit is something you can’t give up completely, then consider simply cutting back. Instead of the daily cup of coffee, why not reduce it to three times a week? Even this simple change can give you a lot of “extra” money which you can funnel into your savings, emergency fund, or an item that matters more to you.

What expensive habits do you have? Can you afford to have them?

Image by vivekchugh from sxc.hu

Making the SuperFerry Stateroom More Affordable

Posted by FrugalPinoy on Nov 21, 2008 in Frugal Tips, Travel | 0 comments

Last week, my partner and I went to Cebu and Bohol on our vacation.  Since the ferry trips took 24 hours or more, we wanted to make sure that our accommodations were comfortable.

The Manila-bound tickets we initially bought were for cabin accommodations. This was okay, since the 2 of us were the only ones in the cabin, so we had our privacy.  Cabins can accommodate 4 to 8 people, depending on the vessel, and each cabin has its own TV and bathroom. But when we were going back to Manila from Cebu, our cabin had 5 other people in it, so we had to upgrade accommodations to have our privacy.

For the SuperFerry 1 vessel bound for Manila, getting the stateroom accommodations in the SuperFerry offices meant paying  P3,962.99 for two people (net fare including taxes and fees, and without meals).  However, by getting the upgrade on the ship itself,we were able to save P1,843.19!

How did this happen?  When we approached the vessel’s front desk, the person in charge told us that we only had to add P700 to our original fare (which was P1,419.80).  That’s only P350 each!  This would make our new fare P2,119.80, which is much cheaper than the P3,962.99 that we would’ve paid if we purchased stateroom tickets in the first place.

This was a real bargain because stateroom accommodations have a much bigger bathroom, a bed for two (rather than one small bed each), and a private viewing deck.  Also, your TV gets a wider range of channels (the TVs in other accommodations can only view GMA and ABS-CBN).  You also have a desk, chairs, and a nightstand.  You can also request hot and cold drinking water to be brought to your room.

The only downside to doing this is that if all the staterooms are full, then you can’t get an upgrade.  Also, you’ll have to reserve your upgrade as soon as you get on the vessel, or others who want to request an upgrade might get ahead.  But if you travel during off-season or the shoulder season, there’s a good  chance that there will be empty staterooms and fewer passengers to compete against.

I also don’t know if you can have the same amount of savings in other vessels, but I think that it’s likely.  After all, you’re already on the ship, and if there are vacant staterooms, at least SuperFerry can still earn from them because of your upgrade.

Have you experienced this yourself?  What do you do to make ferry accommodations more affordable? Please share any tips or comments with us

Note: Prices are accurate at the time of writing.