Ways to Stretch your Budget

We are now on enhanced community quarantine which means that people are not allowed to go out of their house and work. This is to flatten the curve when it comes to the Covid 19 virus. 

One of the things that people these days worry about is how to make ends meet. For most people, it's a hand to mouth existence. For others, they live paycheck to paycheck. For a lot of people, it's no work, no pay. With the enhanced community quarantine where people are not allowed to go to work, making ends meet become a real thing.

Sadly, not everyone is being paid by their companies or given their 13th-month pay early. Others are freelancers who live from project to project. 

I'm one of those people. I recently gave birth via C-section and this wiped out everything. We are just recovering from it and now, Covid 19 has affected our lives. My partner has stopped going to work because he is constantly exposed to the virus since he covers the news and he risks getting infected and thus, infecting us. Sadly, the newspaper he works for is not one of the generous ones. It's no work, no pay for him.

February was all about Taal Eruption wreaking havoc and this March, it's Covid 19.

So, how does an ordinary gal make ends meet?

1. Online work. If you have certain skills like writing, editing, photoshop, data entry, encoding, or transcribing skills, you can find work online. The pay may not be great but a little can go a long way.

I write for a living and there are so many sites such as Upwork or Fiverr that are constantly looking for people to do jobs online. Data entry is something everyone can do. If you have a good ear, you can also do transcription. If you can do photoshop, there are businesses that will pay you for editing services.

Here are 5 Tips for working from home for newbies. 

2. Destash. Almost everyone I know has a stash at home of things that they have accumulated but no longer use. SELL IT. A lot of things at home that you no longer have use for can be sold because as they say, another man's trash is another person's treasure.

If you are keeping something out of memory or guilt, let it go. If it is no longer being used, take a photo so you can remember it and then sell it. Turn it into something that will make you profit so you can get something that you actually need or will use.

3. Shop your stash. Since we have so many things, the tendency to forget what we have is very high. Shopping your stash means making an inventory of what you have so that you know what you need to replenish and what you have in storage.

Our tendency is to keep buying what we think we don't have anymore, not realizing that we already have certain things and so it piles up. Shopping your stash lets you realize what you still have, what you have too much of, and what you need to use immediately so that it doesn't go to waste.

4. Cut down. If you use to drink 3 cups of coffee at home, make it 2 or 1 cup for now. This crisis will not last forever so for the meantime, learn to make ends meet and stretch the budget.

If you used to have meat 5x a week, cut down to 2x a week for now and eat more veggies or whichever is cheaper for the meantime. You can also learn how to cook ground pork in different ways since ground pork is cheaper compared to pork chop and can be cooked in multiple ways.

You can also lookup different ways to cook noodles, sardines, egg, and monggo or mung beans since those are cheaper and lasts longer.

5. Drink up. Sometimes, we think we are hungry when in reality, we are just bored, restless, or stressed. Instead of eating and consuming what needs to be preserved, drink water. It hydrates you and helps your digestive system. Win win situation.

Lastly, take advantage of all the extensions being given by the different companies. Do note that this is an extension and not bills being waived so it still needs to be paid.

Little things will go a long way so if there's anything that you can do to cut down consumption so you won't need to buy it, please do so. If you can swap ingredients to something of less cost, do so as well. We can survive this as long as we all help each other out.

Stay safe everyone.