The price of everything seems to have gone up in a twinkling of an eye, hasn’t it?
Flour (wheat), rice, fuel, milk…………
So how does one cope with increasing costs but fixed salaries? There are many ways to deal with this situation. You either cut costs or increase your household income.
Increasing one’s household income seems to be a no brainer. So many SAHMs start thinking about returning to the workforce or working from home or starting a home business.
May I suggest that cost cutting may be a better way?
We need to re-examine our lifetsyle and start asking the hard question : is it a need or is it a want whenever we start eyeing something to purchase or signing up the children for yet another enrichment class.
There are many books and websites that cover these topics and in greater detail than I can ever do so in this post. These are a few titles that come to mind. Just google “frugal living”, “simple living” and you’ll have a whole host of websites and books to start you off. Some examples include :
Books
The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn
Miserly Moms by Jonni McCoy
Websites
Living On A Dime
The Dollar Stretcher
The Frugal Life
How have we been cutting costs?
1. Cut electrical consumption
a) Reduce use of the airconditioner
The biggest culprit in raising our electricity bills is the use of the air-conditioner. So we don’t sleep with the air-conditioning on. If the weather is extremely hot and humid, we will cool down the bedrooms for a few hours before switching it off and leaving only the ceiling fans on.
But I must say that one of the main motivating reasons to do this is our sensitive noses. Sleeping in air-conditioned rooms often leave us with stuffy or running noses in the middle of the night and lots of sneezing in the mornings.
In the daytime, unless it is extremely hot and humid, I do not turn on the air-conditioner. Even when we do turn it on, I try to hold off turning it on till the late afternoon. It does require a huge amount of self-discipline to not turn it on especially during the hot and humid months.
But I must say that sometimes, for the sake of sanity, I will turn it on from the mornings. Thankfully, those are rare days. Usually, we just have the fans on at full blast and we shower more often.
b) Stop boiling water unnecessarily
Another way we have cut down our bill is to stop boiling our drinking water. We used to boil all our water in a 2-litre electric kettle, cool it down and then transfer it to the water dispenser. Now with a family of 8 you can imagine how much water we were boiling per day! Then I switched to boiling the water on the gas stove. That saved us nearly $20 a month!
Today, we no longer boil any water unless it is to make our morning cuppa 
This is because we have installed a water filter/purifier in our home. Since it eliminates all the impurities and chlorine, it is safe enough to drink direct from the filtered tap. Yes, the cost of installing the filter was high but now we are enjoying clean filtered water and have eliminated the need to boil litres and litres of water daily.
c) Sun and/or air dry our laundry.
We have not used a dryer for our clothes for more than 6 or 7 years. All our clothes are sun and/or air dried. Not only are we cutting down our electrical bills, we are also prolonging the life of our clothes this way.
2. Eat in more
Most of you would know by now that I dislike cooking. But one can’t deny the fact that eating in does save us lots of money. And another side benefit of cooking and eating in? You know exactly what goes into your food!
If you are like me, menu planning is really a life saver. I have heard some say that menu planning is boring and they feel restricted by their plans. And yet, these are the same people who end up eating sandwiches day after day! Isn’t that more boring?!
If you need some inspiration, click this link to find out how you can Save Time And Money By Planning Your Meals
3. Buy less
This is where we often ask ourselves : do we really need this??? Afterall, one item more in our possession means 1 more item cluttering up the home! Do the children or I really need one more dress/shirt/pants? Do I really need to buy that book. Perhaps I can borrow it from the library/friend instead.
Retail therapy and impulse shopping is fun but burns a hole in the pocket. And one often ends up with more stuff than what one has use for. How wasteful!
Even with groceries. Do the children need to snack? And snack so much? But even as I want to cut costs, I don’t want to compromise on our health.
We love our meat and don’t plan on becoming vegetarians overnight to cut costs To deal with the rising cost of meat, we use a mix of fresh and frozen meats. I don’t like frozen meat for soups (not as tasty as fresh meat, in my humble opinion) but if I were going to pan fry the meat or cook it in flavourful stews, frozen meat can work quite well. Frozen meat can cost less than half the price of fresh meat! That’s a lot of savings!
Another example - beef is expensive and so is mutton. So we make do with more chicken and pork. Fruits and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet but the children do not need to eat strawberries everyday!
We drink water not juice or gasp! canned drinks! Water is good for our bodies. Sugared drinks are not. They are bad for our teeth too! If your children are addicted to it, this is a good time to wean them off it. You can choose to cold turkey them or dilute their juices with more and more water till they get used to drinking plain ole water.
4. Eat leftovers
I learnt this from my mom. Everytime there are leftovers from a meal, she would keep them and she would either re-heat them and eat it at the next meal or try to create another dish out of the leftover food. She would also collect leftover rice and cook fried rice with it at the end of the week.
If you hate to eat leftovers, then one way to avoid having them is to cook less! And better still, give your children smaller portions and allow them to ask for seconds if they are still hungry. This way is better than piling their plates with food and have them leave it unfinished.
5. Buy from eBay or Yahoo auction sites
I have said this before and I will say it again. Before you rush out and buy something in a shop, check out the auction sites first. I just bought a pair of brand new, soft, lamb skin shoes for the baby. I saw a similar pair retailing for $36 but bought this brand new pair off eBay at $20.00, including postage!
If you don’t mind well-kept second hand items, these auction sites are great for bargains. Sometimes, you can even get brand new items at a better price than from bricks-and-mortar stores since these online stores have no overhead costs. And occasionally, buying items all the way from the US can even be cheaper than buying it locally! Do your research before you buy anything if you are looking to be thrifty.
6. No enrichment classes
Yes, this may be a hard thing for Singaporeans to give up since it is so ingrained in our culture that junior must be taking up ballet or speech and drama or art classes to be well rounded. Some classes may be necessary - eg. if the child is not doing well in a certain subject and mom or dad can’t help. But many classes are optional and unnecessary. Or they could be delayed till a more appropriate time.
7. Diluting Soaps and Shampoos
I did not start out diluting our liquid soaps and shampoo to cut costs but to prevent the children from leaving a slippery mess in the bathroom. They tend to use too much soap and not rinse off thoroughly leaving the floor very slippery 
And for the dd with eczema, this led to the overdrying of her skin. So I decided to dilute the soap and shampoo to “control” the amount of soap and shampoo used.
But then I realised that an added benefit of diluting the soap and shampoo is that one bottle of shampoo or liquid soap can last a long time!
8. DIY
If one can DIY (do-it-yourself) in many areas, one would save a lot of money. Eg. sew your own clothes, fix your toilet, cook from scratch, teach, etc…
If you are able to DIY all your household chores, this is one big way one can save money! I know that this can be difficult to do when one has very young children but it can be done. Or one can compromise by eliminating the live-in helper but getting a once a week part-time helper OR asking your part time helper to come in once every fortnight instead of once every week.
Yes, it means you have to do more but hey! everything has a price, no?
If you need help in managing your housework, you can check out my posts under Home Management.
As we look to cut our costs, please do not compromise on areas of hygiene and health. I once heard that someone did not shower for 2 to 3 days to save water! Perhaps if one lived in a cool and dry climate that is a real possibility. But in hot and humid Singapore?! One would need to shower at least once a day to not cause the person next to us to faint!
What about the use of the car you may be thinking? For us at this stage of our lives, the car is a necessity. Taking the public transport (bus or mrt) with many young children in tow is a real challenge. Especially when neither our walkways nor fellow passengers are child-friendly The only time we take the public transport is if we are taking 2 or 3 children with us only - which is a rarity.
I’d like to add one more point - sometimes, the stress one has to go through to save a few dollars here and there is not worth it. Do prayerfully consider with your dh how you can together cut costs so that you can continue to stay home and be a mother to your children without placing more stress on your dh to bring in more money.
Don’t forget, God does provide!
Sometimes even when it doesn’t seem possible or logical, we have personally experienced His providence in amazing ways. Keep looking to Him for your needs.
And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory
by Christ Jesus. Phil 4:19
Happy cost cutting! And do share if you have other tips that can help the rest of us.
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Check out My Blog, Building An Ark In Singapore, for more of my writings and musings.
