Making do with less: reducing life's expenses little by little

I was away on holiday for 10 days last month and called up my newspaper agent to temporarily stop my newspapers for the duration of my holiday. When I got home after my holiday, I realised that the agent had forgotten to restart my newspaper delivery and I had to only make do with the Today newspaper which happened to be delivered to all residents in my apartment.

Because I already have a Straits Times online subscription, I could still get my daily dose of the Straits Times without spending more money on the subscription. Hence, I decided to permanently stop my subscription to the newspapers every morning.

Doing the same with less
In my quest for financial freedom, I realise that you can do the same with less money little by little when you examine expenses in your life whether you really NEED it. In my case, I already have a subscription to the physical newspapers coupled with a subscription to the online edition. Therefore, in my case, I was paying twice for the same news content which was somewhat wasteful. My estate was fortunate to receive a copy of Today newspapers free-of-charge and hence I still had another paper to satisfy my daily dose of major headlines in Singapore with my morning cuppa.

Some of you might baulk at the idea of pinching pennies when you can afford to pay that $0.70 per copy of the Straits Times. That is not the issue, the issue is how you can examine your own life to find out really what you can do less of. I too could afford the $0.70 per day but by removing this expense which could be met by my Straits Times online subscription, this $0.70 pays for my morning cup of coffee from the cafeteria. :-)

Squeezing more out of existing stuff
Another example of squeezing more value out of stuff we own is to make full use of our household appliances until they break down. My 6 year-old Sony CRT television set is still going strong and I have resisted the urge to upgrade to an LCD or Plasma TV throughout those years. I do not intend to upgrade until the set breaks down as it is already beyond its warranty period. The same goes for my refrigerator and my washing machine.

Financial freedom is within our grasp
The more I save money and the more I apply these savings to investments, the more my goal of financial freedom beckons. I still have a long way to go but it is fun to see how you can squeeze out the maximum value out of what we have and see the spare savings materialise right before your very eyes. Given that the Central Provident Fund (CPF) minimum withdrawal age is steadily being pushed to 65 and beyond, it is very clear that if you want to retire earlier than 65, you must be prepared to build up your retirement nest egg independently of the CPF minimum sum and thereby empowering yourself to retire at the age where your passive income exceeds your living expenses even without considering CPF minimum sum.

Each of us has to decide what is important in our own journey to financial freedom.

Be well and prosper.