Money Pinching Methods and Watermelons
Stretching the dollar may mean penny pinching to some, but it all adds up in the long run. My aunt noticed her colleague buying two watermelons each time she went to the supermarket during lunch time, and wondered why she would always make two trips to the cashier. Probably the colleague had forgotten to take an additional watermelon, but it was simply puzzling.
It turned out that this lady is great at stretching the dollar. First of all, she would take a free shuttle service to this shopping complex. After having her lunch, she will pop by the supermarket. Each watermelon costs $2.74 or something similar, and do you know that Cold Storage will round down the figure to $2.70? That is a savings of 4 cents. When the colleague buys the second watermelon, she saves another 4 cents. That is a total of 8 cents. If she buys the watermelons 10 times, that would be 80 cents, enough to buy a cup of milo at some places.
Now, what if she buys two watermelons at the same time? She will end up with a net loss of 2 cents each time, since Cold Storage will round up the prices. She will have to pay $5.50 instead of $5.40. In total, she loses 10 cents. If she buys the watermelons 10 times, that would be $1.00, which might be enough to buy two cans of soft drink at a supermarket. If you add up these sums, it can be quite mind boggling.
Immediately, I told my aunt that this colleague was wasting her time, which was even more precious than that $0.10 she saved. This was the same question she posed to the colleague, but the colleague said that the shuttle service only came at a certain timing, so even if she did not take that time to pay again, she would not be doing anything else.
It was hilarious. I wouldn’t make two trips especially at a place I frequent. I don’t want people to recognise my face, but yes, I’ve done the same thing too. At Popular, they round off the last cent, and so before I started using my credit cards to earn points, I would do a little bit of mental sums if I was just buying a few small items. However, using credit cards means that I don’t get to have any rounding off advantage, or disadvantage. NTUC fairprice is another place that rounds off the figure.
The Young Businessman offers some tips to save money, such as bringing your own water bottle and borrowing books from the library which I’m doing, but I definitely cannot give up my car. Having my own car affords me the independence and sanity that I need, and seriously, once you have your own transport, all other forms are really crap.
What penny pinching methods do you have?
Sarah Tan - SingaporeProfit.com
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Another way to really save money is stay within walking distance to your work place. You’d be really surprise how much can be saved in a month.