Here are some of my proven ways to save money even on a low income. 1. Save on food budget. I do meal planning every 2 weeks so this helps a lot on decluttering my fridge and pantry as well gives me a sort of meal organization for the coming week. I do first an inventory of my pantry, fridge and freezer and see what are the items that near expiry and have to be used up. I do not go to the grocery hungry. The times I do…
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Even if I am an immigrant and not technically an ofw, I still consider myself as one because I know that one day I will go back to the Philippines and live there for good. So here are my proven tips on how to really save. 1. Income and Expenditure I have an hourly work contract so it means that my income varies from one month to the next. My expenses however, are thankfully fixed (food, transport, insurance, house bills, portion of taxes, portion of holiday bills). Every month I…
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January last year, I wrote my financial targets. I stated clearly how much should I have in my Swiss account, Philippine Account and stock market portfolio. I also made a budget for each expenses that I am responsible of in our household. I am able to foresee a year’s worth of expenses based on my previous year data. (I have been listing my expenses the past 5 years deligently. I only work part time so I do not have a lot of salary. However, I am responsible for the grocery,…
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I just have a new phone after not having one for almost 3 weeks (17 days to be exact). My 6 months old Samsung blacked out on me and I was hoping that I could have it back repaired but alas, that was not the case. I bought that phone from Interdiscount last April this year. Admittedly the phone was accidentally dropped many times over but everything had been working perfectly fine. Then one day while I was at work, it just blacked out. It was still on guarantee so…
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Budgeting is a very mundane topic but a very necessary one to financial independence. You can never save and invest if you do not master this. Let me share you a technique that I have been using since 2015 that allowed me to have an overview of my finances. I have been using a free spreadsheet template from google that is very easy to navigate. It is called google sheets monthly and annual budget templates. I tweak it according to my own finances. I do not even have…
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This is the second part of a series of my Swiss Grocery Stores Review. This time I will be writing my thoughts about the Migros Supermarket. Just like COOP, Migros is a national Swiss coopertive, a group that caters to almost all facets of life here in Switzerland. Some big names that can be seen all over the country are part of the Migros Group of Companies. Some of the members of the group are the following; Hotel Plan, Migros Bank, Denner, Ex Libris, Galaxus AG, Interio AG, Globus, Migrolino,…
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My husband and I talk often about early retirement. I guess for people who have spent already quite a long time working, this is a common wish. Early retirement for us meant not having a 9-5 job in our early 50s and that is around 15 years from now. So in 15 years, we need to have accomplished a lot of things mostly in the financial department to get a good start. Life expectancy is 90 years old so the budget should suffice until then. I am also not counting…
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One Sunday, my husband and I were invited in a kid birthday party. We were told that we will do some hiking so please use appropriate shoes. I was excited because of the hiking part but a bit tired thinking of it at the same time since the whole week was a busy one for me. It was a good day for a hike since it was still early summer here in Switzerland. We started the hike at about half past 2 in the afternoon with like 6-7 families of…
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In a series of articles, I would like to write my own thought comparisons on the 5 leading grocery stores here in Switzerland. Basically here, there are 7 grocery store chain that locals as well as visitors could be familiar with since most of them are very visible. These are COOP, Migros, Lidl, Aldi, Denner, Spar and Volg. The first article is my review of the COOP. COOP is one of the two biggest grocery stores here in Switzerland. They are in every city and villages as well as in…
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Some months ago, a Swiss co-worker and I were talking about online shopping and she was raving about Aliexpress. Aliexpress is an online shop that is based in China. This is the company that was founded by the famous Jack Ma. It is sort of like Amazon or Ebay where sellers post their their goods in their online stores inside the Aliexpress website. Anyway, she said that the site is good and very cheap and that she always shop there. So I said I will give it a try. On…
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