Photo by Alexander Kovalchuk // “Zagranitsa”
Recently, the popular New York newspaper The New York Daily News, with the help of a group of economists, conducted a thorough analysis of the budget and daily spending of an average resident of the largest US city, offering “10 recommendations for reducing the daily expenses of a New Yorker.”
The first and most important source of savings is, of course, food and eating, the newspaper says. Consequently, you need to stop visiting restaurants and cafes during lunchtime and start bringing food from home to work. “It will be significantly cheaper,” asserts certified financial planner Valerie Edelman of the Manhattan firm Chestnut Financial. For example, even if you buy all the ingredients (including tomatoes, carrots, a whole chicken, greens, and sauce) at the most expensive supermarket, a vegetable salad made at home and brought to work in a plastic container would cost only $20.48 per week. If you prefer to order the same salad daily at a nearby cafe (where one portion costs at least $6), then you will spend $36 per week, including tips to the waiter. Thus, over a year, you can save $776 on this alone.
Eternally busy New Yorkers love fruit. For example, a fresh melon cut into pieces in a cup will cost $7.44 at a nearby deli, while a whole melon at a grocery store costs only $3.99. “Wouldn’t it be better, to save money, to peel and cut the melon yourself?” Edelman stresses. “You just need to calculate, plan, and think everything through in advance. Groceries can be easily bought on weekends at the supermarket, and work lunches can be prepared at home.” Another good way to save money is to cut back on weekly restaurant dinners “by at least one per month.” This will save another $720 per year.
The next important source of savings is coffee. After all, Americans practically never have breakfast at home; they do it on their way to work, buying a roll and always a large cup of coffee along the way. However, not all coffee is created equal. You can buy it from street vendors for a dollar and a half, or at the well-known Starbucks chain, which has its little cafes on almost every corner of New York. They are driven by the stereotype: “If you drink coffee at Starbucks every morning or grab a cup to go, you are successful and everything is fine with you.” However, this also costs a considerable amount of money. A regular cup of morning drink at branded establishments costs at least $2, or an average of $600 per year. But there is a way out here too. Starbucks sells packages of coffee beans for $9.95; from each package you can brew 45 servings of coffee at home and pour it daily into your favorite thermos. This will save another $550 per year in your budget.
How much you can avoid spending by not buying books but instead getting a library card at the public library, the author could not calculate. However, considering that books in New York are extremely expensive (on average $25), apparently, a lot. To avoid paying extra for movie tickets and related items such as popcorn and water, you can also borrow films on DVD discs from the same library – especially since DVD distribution there is well established. “True, they are two years old, but were you able to see all the movies you liked from the trailers a couple of years ago?” another economist assures. If you skip one out of four trips to the movies, you will keep at least another $250 in your wallet every year.
The newspaper offers readers a whole range of other money-saving tips, including pooling money to buy a gift for a friend or relative, as well as giving up premium cable channels and additional Internet services. In addition, if you have small children, “do not hire a babysitter for them when you need to go shopping.” “It is much more practical to ask your husband, sister, or other relatives to sit with the offspring. This will allow you not only to avoid paying a babysitter, but also to focus on the shopping list and not buy extra junk that children will inevitably beg for in the store,” notes The New York Daily News.
Another tip concerns how to save money on the dogs you have at home. However, this is only possible if your pet needs grooming. No, you should not clumsily cut the fur of your four-legged friend yourself or rush to sign up for dog groomer courses. It is enough to simply... wash the dog yourself before taking it to the groomer, which will save up to $20 per wash. On average, per year, according to the author of the article, this amounts to about $240.