As homemakers, we all try to find deals, try to save money, get the most out of every peso. It doesn’t matter what you’re income level is, what your financial status is, generally homemakers brag about the savings. We get an incredible high when we save money on buying things. What sets us apart from the rest of the population is that the things we get excited most about are deals on stuff that we need in the house. Simple joys like saving on the shampoo brand you usually buy, or that pillow sheet you’ve been eyeing on for the whole year, and maybe the buy 1 take 1 deal on that dishwashing liquid. Amazing, right? I just got a huge deal a couple of days ago, which I posted on our Facebook Page, Work is Home, and saved, I just computed, around 1,500 PHP after buying a year’s worth of tissue paper. That’s where I got the inspiration for this episode.
Hi, I’m Anne, welcome to this episode of our weekly podcast,
Work is Home. Today’s episode will be
about saving money while spending money.
How to get the most out of your peso while making sure you have all the
items your household needs very well taken cared of – all while saving
thousands year-round in almost everything you buy.
Let’s jump right into the first thing you need to save
money.
1. Credit Card
This is very controversial especially here in the
Philippines because it has the reputation of putting people deeper into debt
because of the financial charges, but what people don’t realize is that you only
get charged those financial charges if you don’t pay the whole bill before the
date is due. Meaning, if you’re late in
settling the debt you owe the credit card company. But if you pay them off before the due date,
then you won’t get charged any finance charges, there’s no interest charged on
top of your purchases, and you get all of the benefits of having a credit card,
but none of the crippling fees. The only
fee you’d have to really pay for is the annual renewal fee but even some cards
waive that if you reach a certain amount of spending for the year.
What kinds of savings do you get for using credit
cards?
Rewards points everytime you charge things on your credit
card. These rewards points often can be
used as money towards purchases, or claim rewards like miles, discounts on
shops, etc. Maybe even pay off the annual
fee using the rewards points? It depends
on the credit card company and the type of credit card you have. If you get a credit card tied to a gasoline
station, then your rewards will be mostly about gasoline discounts, etc. And if it’s a credit card for travel, then it
probably earns more miles when you purchase airline tickets but not a lot of
rewards for shopping. I suggest, for
homemakers, a credit card that’s basic, or generally for shopping. That’s where we spend most of our money,
and usually, the rewards and discounts will be about shopping or grocery
shopping.
Shopping discounts.
Credit cards strive to have a lot of tie-ups with department stores,
groceries, restaurants as part of their marketing as well. So if you’re out with the family, you can get
free meals, free desserts, and other food items in restaurants. And when you’re grocery shopping or shopping
to stock-on supplies you need for the house, there are occasional shopping
rebates, sales, additional discounts for your credit card.
Raffle entries. Need
I say more? So you spend money, you get
points, you get discounts, and then a chance to win cars, etc.
Generally, those are the only features that I use my credit
card for. I only have 1. I may get another one because these 2 huge
banks alternate their discount promos and sometimes you get better deals with
one or the other. The one thing that I
don’t really use is the “installment” option.
Even if they say it’s “0 interest rate”.
I believe them, I just don’t trust myself to track the installment
payment or I just don’t want to be bothered with tracking and just making sure
I don’t pay 1 month more than I should, or forget to pay 1 month, etc. That’s probably just me, so if I can’t pay
for the whole thing the next period my bill comes, I don’t buy it, even if my
credit card credit limit allows me to buy it.
2. Mall membership card
I have an SM Prestige card that allows me to get the sale
discounts on a Friday (usually) without having to abide by any minimum amount
purchase. You can still get additional
discounts on your purchases if you have a SMAC card but sometimes they impose a
minimum purchase of 3,000php. But if
you’re buying bulk, you’ll clear that amount easily. So have a mall membership card for the mall
you always buy your household products from, so that you’ll enjoy additional
discounts.
3. Plan and wait
List down the “consumables” you use at home. I’m not talking about grocery items – grocery
stores rarely have sales except for specific brand promos. I’m talking about stuff you use in the living
room, in the bedroom, the garage, the dining room, and the kitchen – that
aren’t food. Think everything that you
can buy in the department store which includes make-up, personal care items,
and even some hardware items. Those can
include tealight candles, batteries for your clocks, wipes, cologne, etc.
4. Buy for the whole year
This is the true trick of the trade. Ladies and gentlemen, hear me out, try to
track how much toilet paper you use in a month, how many shampoo bottles you
finish in a month, how much conditioner, toothpick, alcohol, moisturizer,
shaving cream, razor, lotion, toothpaste, toothbrush, cotton buds, etc. List those down on your notebook, your
calendar, on your phone notes, etc, and then multiply by 12. That’s how much of that stuff you use for 1
year, and how much you need to buy once the yearly Christmas sale hits. I’m telling you, you can easily save 5,000php
just by doing this. Easy!
I’ve done this and combined with other stuff we needed to
buy for moving into our new home during a pandemic – like a carpet, sofa,
ref, etc – we saved around 20,000php.
This works.
How much will you actually save? Is it all worth it?
Let’s take for example the tissues or toilet papers I bought
recently. They cost 269php for a pack
that has 24 rolls. We use up 24 packs in
a year which means 269php x 24 = 6,456php in a year is how much it would cost
us.
Here’s the discount I get for SM’s Christmas sale (that’s
where I buy the tissues from their department store).
I get a 10% store discount
I get a 10% SMAC discount
I then get a 5% instant rebate from my credit card
This is how to compute it and you don’t just add the
percentages up and multiply it to get the discount price. You take 10% off, then from that product, you
take 10% off again, etc.
So, 6,456 less 10% store discount = 5,810.04
5,810.04 less 10% SMAC discount = 5,229.36
5,229.36 less 5% rebate = 4,967.89
From 6,456 to 4,967.80, that’s a total of 1,488.12 PHP
discount! And that’s just for 1
item! The reason why I wasn’t able to
get this item during their Christmas sale is that they had run out of this
then.
How to pull this off the 1st time
Then you ask me, but Anne, I will need money to do
that. I will need a lot of money to buy
all those things? I hear you, and here’s
how I did it, and hopefully this will help you to start your own saving while
spending journey.
If you’ve heard of this thing called the 13th-month pay? Yep, take a good portion of
that, maybe sacrifice a little on some thing for just that holiday, and see
which item you can buy in bulk for that year.
For example, based on your budget, you can buy a year’s worth of shampoo
and conditioner. Remember, that’s after
figuring out how much you need of those things in a year. After your tracking and monitoring. So now you’ve saved money, you don’t have to
include those 2 items everytime you shop, you start putting away money so you
can buy in bulk more items next time there’s a sale. It doesn’t just happen in December, obviously
because I was able to buy tissue for sale in March. So the sales happen year-round, it’s just
that I buy in bulk in December because that’s when we get my husband’s 13th-month pay.
The next real issue is actually storage but for small items
like shampoo, sanitary napkins, etc, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a spot, a
drawer, a cabinet to put them in.
Whenever you run out of something, you don’t have to go to the store to
get one, you have the store in your home already!
The other benefit of it is you also lock in the price of
that item. For example, now, oil prices
are rising really fast, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to the oil price
hike. It will eventually find its way into
the market and product prices will increase.
Well, I’ve already bought my stocks for the whole year, I, at least have
the rest of the year secured.
The important policy I have for our household is that SALEs
aren’t bad. They’re not just a way for
the corporations to get your money. If
you plan well, you can use their tactics to your advantage. Buy only the things you need, buy only the
things you use. Don’t just buy things
for the sake of buying them or just because there’s a big discount on that
item. Buy only the things you actually
use and need. If you spend your money
well, you’ll find that you’ll be able to save your money while spending it at
the same time. Sounds crazy, but it’s
true.
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