Routine- tips to change your lifestyle

Assalamualaikum and how are you? We are fine on this hot summer. It is 31 degrees at 9 pm!

Have you taken your breakfast? And where did you have it? When I was in Malaysia and still working, I usually have it at home or sometimes I spent at outside with my friends. During weekend, Juma and I would bring the kids to mamak join or Mc Donald for breakfast. Worst come to worst, he would packed some food for us. The idea is not to cook at home. Usually we will have roti canai (paratha) or tosei or nasi lemak. The drink will be teh tarik or any ice drink.

And this is the routine that I brought together with me to Australia. My husband, who love me endlessly, went along with it. Every weekend, since I reached Perth, he would bring me to Canning Vale market where we can purchase nasi lemak at AUD 3.50 and a cup of coffee at AUD4.00. The nasi lemak tasted awful, cold as it just came out from the fridge; totally opposite from the way it suppose to taste like. The coffee was good but with AUD 4.00, I could get more than only a cup of coffee.

It hit me hard at that time, to revalue our expenses, to adapt with the changes and to give up few routines. From then on, we stopped having breakfast at outside, we dine out once in a month, plan our groceries expenses and buy second hand stuff at garage sale, instead of buying new things at mall. 

Malaysia, my home country is having hard time in terms of financial wise. The citizens are urge to cut their expenses. I believe it is not hard to do it as long as you are willing to change your lifestyle. Here are some tips: 

1. Food: pack food for your lunch. It is cheaper to buy raw material and cook by yourself then to eat out. And it is way healthier. 

2. Food: stop going to fine dining places. Yes, stop! They charge more than they should, in the name of service. It is delicious? Cook by yourself! It is not difficult plus it is gonna be fun!

3. Clothes and shoes: stop buying branded clothes. Many affordable labels offer high quality product at reasonable price. 

4. Clothes and shoes: if you have children, pass down their older sibling's clothes to the younger, if the condition is still fine. It's fine to wear mint condition clothes. Nothing to be ashamed of. So does clothes. You can pass it around with your friends or siblings too. Sharing is caring. 

5. Clothes and shoes: if you have too many clothes, do spring cleaning and donate the ones that you can't use it anymore. Or the one that you seldom use. Somebody's trash is other's treasure. 

6. Travelling: if your office could be access by public transport, it is wise to use it rather than to use your own transport. You can save on fuel and parking fees. I understand that the public transportation always crowded, but you can always start your journey early. Plan your journey. 

7. Travelling: You can do car pool as well. I've done this before and it is fun! There's always somebody to chat with while being stuck in the traffic jam. Plus cost saving! 

8. Leisure: Instead of bringing your family to shopping malls during weekend, why don't you bring them for picnic? Parks usually offer lots of free parking lot and bring home cook meal for picnic. But make sure you clean up the area after finish. Or make little gathering with your friends, like pot luck. Take turn to organise. 

9. Car: Buy car according to our budget. It is an essential item, however, people nowadays take it wrongly. They 'dress up' their car that towards the end, they left no money for food and other important things. Prioritize your needs. It becomes a culture to change car whenever they finish pay up the loan. Free yourself from loan! Look, if you drive to work, most of the time your car will be park at the car park. It means that most of the time in a day you don't need it. So live with what you have. Unless the car gives you such a big trouble; e.g the cost of maintenance is high, your family expanding, don't change your car. It will save up lots of your income. 

10. Party/ wedding/ Aqiqah: As saying said, you get married once in your life time. Make it a memorable one. But many take this saying wrongly. They thought it should be an extravagant wedding to match the word memorable. With this, the cost of the wedding bomb up, more than they afford. The dais, the gifts, the wedding outfit, the doorgift, the food and the list goes on and on. I'm afraid that the memory that you get from your wedding is working extra hard to earn extra money for the event. Or climbing the bank stairs while applying for bank loan. This can be avoid if you know how to match your wedding budget with your own budget. Be realistic. Stop thinking about others think. Think of your future, think of the money that you can save to give your new family a better life. Same goes to your kid's birthday party or aqiqah event. It's fine to spend some money to celebrate your love ones as long as it is not wasting. 

There are many more ways to save up our money to make our future brighter. Just remember, our live is not at the up always, At a time, we will be at down. So this is the time for you to save up to cushion yourself when you at the bottom.