Planning and being patient, establishing proper habits, actively seeking savings in your regular expenses are themes drawn from the list above. This pandemic can teach us a thing or two and leave us with valuable lessons learned.
Shop smart
- Be aware of your buying habits, sit on decisions, and set a budget. The convenience of shopping online while being at home makes it easy to make spontaneous purchases.
- If you need to shop, shop online to find good deals. We expect prices to be more favorable than in-store prices because of fierce competition and cheaper overhead costs associated with online shopping.
- Use price matching apps like Flipp to find the best prices on groceries; plan to avoid line-ups and avoid busy days.
Re-examine your bills
- Many insurance companies are handing out savings to consumers because of lower accident volumes and driving activity. Be sure to call your insurance company to inquire about savings related to the COVID-19
pandemic. - Reduce your service for cell data, since you are indoors and are on the WiFi network. I strongly suggest going on a prepaid plan with a second level telecom company.
- Leverage the current economic situation to negotiate better rates for your home services such as phone and internet by phoning your service providers.
Avoid unhealthy habits
- Avoid buying unhealthy snacks and alcohol and bringing them home, the more accessible they are the more you consume. Limit takeout purchases by setting a budget. I recommend setting a budget of $100 a month/per person.
Preserve existing savings
- Shop around for best paying savings accounts as interest earnings on savings have dropped.
Be sure to guard your emergency savings in a savings account, which has a higher interest rate than a checking account. - Inflation could creep into our economy and reduce the value of your cash holdings. Savings above and beyond funds set aside for a rainy day (3 to 5 months’ worth of expenses) are best used in a savings account since we you can earn higher interest.
Conclusion
Planning and being patient, establishing proper habits, actively seeking savings in your regular expenses are themes drawn from the list above. This pandemic can teach us a thing or two and leave us with valuable lessons learned.
I hope the money-saving tips can help you during these stressful times. Let me know what tips and tricks you have been using in the comments section below.
Related Articles
Should I rent an apartment or buy a condo?
Owning a home is not always better than renting. In fact, we demonstrate that in especially hot housing markets like Toronto’s, renting is far cheaper than buying. This is true even when considering moderate future price increases. The example uses the rent vs buy calculator and is based on a 1-bedroom apartment I was trying to decide between buying or renting.
Six common mistakes investors make
Trade volumes have skyrocketed over the last decades and since investors from all skill and awareness levels are joining the market, understanding investor psychology is increasingly necessary. Advances in technology have eliminated the obstacles to entry for new investors.
Home ownership, a policy blunder
Housing is an important issue today and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. Governments would have to implement land policies and create incentives. I would gear those incentives towards providing housing options by supporting the rental market. Creating options where the market has not provided can restore balance.