The Frugal Beagle

Owning a car represents one of the biggest investments a person makes. Next to a house, owning a car is probably the next biggest investment. Not unlike maintaining a house, car maintenance can be quite costly. However, there are ways and means to help you reduce on your expenses in maintaining a car.

• Treat your passengers and your car delicately. Accelerate softly and don’t act like you’re in a Grand Prix start line at each traffic light. Gently accelerating, cornering and braking will lower fuel consumption and stretch the life of tires, engine and brakes components.

• Be sure that you use the most efficient gear. Keeping the RPMs low will reduce the fuel consumption. Don’t cruise in fourth gear on the highway if your car has fifth gear.

• Unload heavy items if you don’t need to carry them around. The heavier the vehicle the more fuel will be required to overcome its inertia during an acceleration

• If you’re stuck at a railway crossing or in a traffic jam for more than two or three minutes, turn off the car.

• Keeping the car well maintained may make it more efficient and generating fewer harmful emissions.

• If the car doesn’t run on unleaded gas you should have it converted. It’s worthwhile to do the conversion because unleaded gas is considerably cheaper than leaded gas, you’ll save money and reducing harmful emissions as well.

• Drive at the most efficient speed especially on highways. You use 25% less fuel driving at 55mph than when you drive at 75mph.

• Keep the tires at the perfect pressure: if your tires are under-inflated by 6psi, you could be wasting 5% of your fuel.

• Remove the roofrack, if you don’t need it, as it makes your car less aerodynamic and you’ll use more fuel.

• An improperly adjusted carburetor contributes to huge fuel inefficiency. Another reason for keeping the car well maintained is that it would be less likely to fail and leave you stranded. Though you’ll never know when the car will break down, it might cost you a good deal of time and money.

• Call the nearest garages before choosing which one to use. Big dealer garages frequently charge much more than smaller local garages

• Make sure to ask the garage to contact you before performing any serious and expensive repair works that you haven’t instructed them to do. It’s easier to negotiate the price before the task is started than after it is finished.

• If you believe that the garage hasn’t fixed a few things, take the car back and if necessary watch your car being repaired even if you don’t actually understand it.

• If, you think the bill is too high, ask them for more details. It is always a great idea to get an estimate before starting the work, even for trivial jobs.

Car servicing costs mostly consist of parts and labor. The labor charge is usually fixed, whilst the parts may vary in price depend on whether they’re ‘genuine’ (made by your car manufacturer), or made by third-party companies.

Credit cards can bring huge debts. Credit cards are really convenient because you do not need to worry about not having money during an emergency, just swipe that piece of plastic and everything will be fine. We may frequently buy groceries and pay bills on credit, paying the minimum monthly payment while still charging on the credit card each month. This will lead to the accumulating debt and an endless cycle of depression about not being able to pay even the minimum payment.

What people need to do is to cancel their cards. But if you need to keep one around in case of an emergency, these are a few ways to reduce the urge of buying anything with your card.

Don’t use more than one card
There is simply no reason to have three or even six credit cards. You should only use a single card, preferably one with the best interest rates and use it only in an emergency. People usually apply for more cards when they reach the limit of their previous cards, if you are in this situation, you need to immediately stop the cycle.

Lower your credit limit
Most credit card companies continue to progressively increase the credit limit on your card. But it does not mean that you should accept it straightaway. Call the customer service to give you a fixed credit limit and if possible lower your current credit limit. A low, fixed credit limit will prevent you to spend more.

Use cash
Most shops and gas stations that accept credit card may impose high interest and fees. There is no need to pay with a card, if you can pay with cash. The convenience is not worth it if you are accumulating credit card debt which attracts hefty interests. Remember, the more you use the card, the more interest you need to pay.

Leave credit cards at home
When you leave your home, leave your cards at home or tell someone you can trust to hide them somewhere.

Shred your cards
If hiding your cards isn’t enough, you may need to physically shred them. Also if you keep you credit card number somewhere, you should erase and burn it, hopefully you haven’t memorized it yet. But if you have memorized the number, ask your card company to issue a new one. This will effectively prevent yourself from charging the card while you are struggling to eliminate your debts.

There are savings that can be made in your kitchen in terms of environment, money and the time. Some of these advices may seem obvious for you and perhaps you already practice them, even so there’s no harm in repeating these simple savers.

• Wash reasonably. Some detergents are concentrated and you only need a little amount. Don’t waste them.

• When hand washing either clothes or dishes, always start from the cleanest items. It may save both detergent and water.

• Washing up bowl is a better alternative than sink. It requires less cold and hot water, which can be expensive on a long-term. Washing up bowl allows rinsing really dirty items on cold water on one part of the bowl. It will make your task easier and you also need less hot water.

• Don’t wash anything with a hot running tap

• Don’t boil more water than you need: it is a waste of fuel and water. If you’re making hot water for a cup, it is faster and more efficient to use a saucepan with the lid on. It is also a good idea to use a gas cooker instead of an electric kettle.

• Vegetable steamer is an efficient way to cook a large amount of vegetable, tofu and thin slices of meat

• Use pressure cooker to prepare a dish faster and efficiently

• If you use a gas cooker don’t let the flames engulf the saucepan. It can ruin your pan and a waste of fuel.

• You can do many things with an oven. Main course can be cooked together with the vegetables. Once you understand how to cook different things at once, you may save plenty of time and minimize the amount you need to wash up. Certain recipes such as casseroles are perfect for cooking with an oven and it’s alright to overcook it a little bit.

• If your bake often, you should prepare three or four times the usual amount and freeze the extra. You can save fuel and time in preparation.

• It’s possible to turn off your oven 10 minutes faster as the oven can retain enough heat to cook the dish for the next 15 minutes. It only applies for dishes that are cooked for an hour or more

• When cooking, you should keep the lids on pans, unless instructed otherwise.

• Thinner and smaller food will be cooked faster, while saving you some cash.

• If you know beforehand that you’ll be cooking something out of the freezer, put it out of the fridge for an hour or so. It will use less energy and cook faster.