Keeping Apples in My Office Drawer and 2 Other Things I Started Doing to Save Money

As a reply to my comment on Frugal Honey, Jill said that the easiest way to solve a cash issue is to make short and long term plans. I'm still designing my long term plan, but I've already started cutting down my spending.

I've been generally good at living below my means, but I am definitely not a frugal person. So one of my short term plans is to start frugal practices that hopefully will become my new normal. Here are some of the things I started doing to save money:

Reduce my daily allowance

Before, I just set myself a budget and I don't go beyond that. Seems like something a frugal person would do, right? Well, not really, because I set my budget too high--₱500/day (or ₱15,000/month). This is my daily operating expense and doesn't include bills and groceries.

This 500-peso/day limit didn't serve its purpose as a "limit". Sure I don't go beyond it, but I'm realizing now that setting my budget high made me feel entitled to spend all of it. I made sure I max it out by buying whatever--mostly makeup.

Technically, I have the right to spend my money however I want to, but I could've saved more.

Eating apples

After reducing my daily allowance, I've become generally more mindful of habits costing me money. For example, I discovered that if I drink coffee for breakfast and eat nothing else, I experience some sort of a sugar crash 1 to 2 hours later (even if I don't put sugar in my coffee)  and I end up binge eating. When I eat a full breakfast meal, I experience the same thing!

I found the balance in drinking black coffee + eating an apple, the fuji variety. I don't feel hungry for at least 4 hours! One less morning snack to spend on!

I also started storing small fuji apples in my office drawer. I noticed that coffee makes me feel hungry much faster, but I can't give it up. Do you experience coffee-related hunger pangs, too?

Avoiding beauty-related content

I am a beauty junkie and I follow a lot of beauty-centric instagram accounts, blogs, and youtube channels.

I limited the blogs and videos I consume to content focusing on minimalism, curating a capsule makeup collection, decluttering, and personal finance.

Unfortunately, instagram doesn't have a feature to filter content, so I logged off the platform. I still log in from time to time, but I don't spend as much time scrolling through my feed anymore.

I wish more women and beauty content creators would talk about money--like what Chloe Morello and Jill Sabs did. I know it's a taboo subject, but maybe it's time to make it less taboo.

Anyway, avoiding beauty-related content seem to be really working. I haven't been tempted to visit online shopping sites and I haven't bought any makeup this month.

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One thing I need to learn right now is cooking so I could bring my own lunch. Based on my expense log, a big part of my daily budget is being spent on food (lunch, particularly). I can always just buy hotdog but I can't just stick with processed meat forever, besides, vegetables are a lot cheaper.