Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Food prices keep rising


Yesterday i just finished typing on tips to save during meals and guess what that i saw in today news headlines? "Food prices keep rising"...The most interesting thing is that the news was ranked on the most read news in the Star Online website. Well, what to do? Its understood when the oil and wheat price increased, there are bound to be increase in the prices of food and beverages sold. What did you expect? The government going to take the hit directly? Even though that the government will subsidized, but there will be after effects and will hit us consumers in the end.

Those who conduct their business can't be expected to absorb the hit and suffer own losses rite? They also need to keep their business running and when prices from operation cost and raw material increase, the pressure is bound to be passed on to the consumers. Let me just state a brief comparison of prices done by the star in Miri as below

Items//B4 Price//After
Iced milo and iced lemon tea//RM1.50//RM2.30
Bowl of wantan mee// RM2.50 // RM4
Bowl of plain kolok mee//RM1.70 //RM2.50-RM3
Plate of economy rice//RM3.50//RM4-RM5
Plate of char siew rice//RM3.50//RM5

Now there y0u have it. look at the increase and difference. Thats food and beverages which we as humans consumes everyday. We need to eat and drink to continue to live. but with the increase at this rate, our salaries alone will not be enough to cover the basic means of survival. One thing which is certain is our salaries doesn't go up as fast as the rates of increase so its either we earn more or we conserve and consume less.

The worst things that i read on the site is that the government is not able to take action on those business operators which drastically increase their price as long as they do not increase those things which are controlled items. The best thing that the government can advise us is to avoid going to the store.

Source

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

How to Save at Meals?

In view of the rise in all products in the country lately, here i would like to share with all of you how you all can save your cash.We are humans and its a fact that we eat everyday. And when we eat, it will definitely cost us. If we know how to manage our eating patterns, you will be able to see the extra cash at the end of the month. Tips are as below..

1.Cook at Home
Cut that habit of eating out regularly. We know that the raw material price are increasing and when this happens, the sellers will be forced to increase their price as well to maintain profit to their business. Change your lifestyle by cooking your food at home so you don't have to spend the extra cash to buy food and drinks sold outside. You can easily save 20% to 30% of cash when you practice this method. It works more better if you are from a large family because when a larger family eats out, the price can easily reach RM200-Rm300 per meal when you can fill your tummies for less than that if the food was made from home.

2.Lunch Instead of Dinner
OK~ now we know that eating home cooked food from home is a good way to save money but as we all are humans, we need to have something different sometimes. So when the urge to taste something outside comes, its not necessary that we need to spend extra money. We still can get to taste good food at an affordable price if you know the right place to look. Choose lunch over dinner. Why this is so u may ask? This is because many restaurants will have cheaper lunch sets on discounted prices instead of dinner. This move is to draw the mass crowd where discounts can be up to be 50%.WoW! thats half the price.Dinner sets are usually priced more higher for their ala carte meals but u still can find some good promotions at certain restaurants.

3.Pack from Home
This point is a killer. if you follow this method, its confirmed you will save more than ever. Pack your meals at home and bring it to work. If there are leftovers from yesterdays dinner, put it in the fridge. Bring it to work the next morning and heat it up again for lunch. Or you can pick up cheap economy sets to bring to work. This will really save your pockets especially if you are working in an uptown neighborhood where prices of foods are high. Avoid buying water bottles and start to bring your own water from home. Buying Rm1 priced water bottle at convenience stores will eat into your pocket slowly.

4.Pick Your Places
Have any idea what it means? Pick your place means you as a customer have the right to choose and compare which place to dine. To be a smart and saving consumer, avoid places which imposes service charge. 10% service charge is a lot if your bill is high. You can get an extra serving if you minus out the amount.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

The Delay


Wow~ it almost had been a month since i last updated my blog. 1 month is a very long time. actually i always wanted to update it when it was my free time but i was either too tired to do so or i was caught up with other chores. Well, then again here i am to update my blog after so long.

the 1st thing that i notice is the number of counters that was stated on my page. When last i was looking at the counter was only 400 plus. i almost got a shock when i opened my blog and saw it was at 1400. which means that there are people visiting my blog. i didn't expect to have so many visitors, seriously since i haven't really started to commercialize and introducing my blog to others.the reason why i am not doing so is because i don't think that the content on my blog is sufficient. when i launch my blog, i want it to be informative and also full with content so that the readers get to learn from my life experience. Thats why i called this blog "The Road Of Life" as this is a compilation of what i went through in life.

Since last month, i was very busy with my work and also family commitment. Wow!! i didn't know that family commitment was so much work. i mean really. now i know why people who have family can't even find time for them self coz there are not any available. Family commitment doesn't mean i got married ok? i mean family as in my family like mum, brother and sister.by the way, i am still long way of from getting married.

Life is very hectic especially if everyone in the house depends on you. Imagine, i am already so busy with work. When i finish work, i still need to attend to everyones need at home. i need to fetch my sis to college, send my bro to tuition, get the food ready for them, do house work chores, pay the bills, do the groceries and the list goes on and on.

This all started to get busy when my mum met with an accident and she was not able to do most of the housework anymore. Looking on the bright side, at lease i get to feel the heat of taking responsibility and being occupied. Keeps me wondering if i would ever want to get married and committed. Well i guess this is a part of life and we take the best of all that we went through. So now since my mum is getting better, i finally found some time to update this blog. More content to come so just stay tuned.