Of course there are so many ways we can earn extra cash to cover our budget and cut down our spending by shop lesser, spend lesser to bring our budget down. In my opinion, there is one more tip than people often overlooked.

Your meals! Your breakfast, lunch, dinner and including snacks and tea time. The routine which everybody will need to go through every day to get ourselves charged up and keep us going throughout the day.

Spend less on your meals, buy less or stop buying junk food during snake snack and tea time. Cut down or eliminate on dessert after meals.

Cut down or not to order any drinks during meals. I believe most of our offices has pantry and provides hot or warm water, bring your own coffee or tea and make use of it to make your drinks, instead of spending extra cash on it in restaurant.

These little money that don’t really make a difference at one glance, what is a little of RM1-RM2 to you from your whole sum of salary can make an impact? Because you are doing it as a routine during meals, you would be surprised how much you can save.

Average example:

Breakfast: RM2 on food + RM1 on drink = RM3
Lunch: RM5 on food + RM2 on drink = RM7
Dinner: RM7 on food + RM2 on drink = RM9

Daily spending = RM19, weekly spending = RM133, monthly spending = RM570

Minus drink average example:

Breakfast: RM2 on food = RM2
Lunch: RM5 on food = RM5
Dinner: RM7 on food = RM7

Daily spending = RM14, weekly spending = RM98, monthly spending = RM420

You saved RM5 daily, RM35 weekly, and RM150 monthly compared to your routine meal spending!

Let’s take a look at extreme case that you cut down on drinks and meals. Cut down on meals doesn’t to eat less, but to make wiser choices on food, or bring food from home.

Breakfast: Homemade sandwich = RM1.50 (RM0.80 for whole meal bread, RM0.70 on toppings)
Lunch: RM4 on food = RM4
Dinner: RM5 on food = RM5

Daily spending = RM10.50, weekly spending = RM73.50, monthly spending = RM315

You saved RM8.50 daily, RM59.50 weekly, and RM255 monthly compared to your routine meal spending!

It is a challenge to cut down on your favorite meals and drinks, but if you are running low on cash and over shot your budget, that is even harder to survive with.

Maybe you have better ideas on cutting down on something and save more cash, share with me!