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Friday, April 30, 2004
Zosa: Exercising creativity to save money
By ELBERT ZOSA
BIZ VANTAGE
FIXED SALARIES. In the corporate world, to increase net income, you can boost your top line or revenues/sales and cut expenses. Individuals have less opportunity to increase their incomes especially if they depend on fixed salaries that are not likely to escalate significantly in a slow economy.
Some older people survive on fixed pensions. Some others who are dependent on interest income are not ecstatic over the short-term yields they are getting from banks at maybe seven percent gross or 5.6 percent net.
Saving money is, therefore, an important consideration to practically everyone, Henry Sy and the other taipans possibly excluded.
While on the bumpy part on the road to riches, however, the taipans too probably also found ways of stretching their peso.
Most housewives intuitively know that buying a product in a larger quantity or different package is one way of saving money. Many supermarkets in the U.S. already show the price per unit, e.g. per ounce. Prices also depend on where you buy the product e.g. the convenience store will likely charge a higher price than the large supermarket.
Remember the Erap ambiance joke? Presented a bill for thousands of pesos at a five-star hotel, Erap asks, why the high price? He is told that’s for the ambiance. Erap asks: who ordered the ambiance?
Everyone knows that a soft drink in a bottle costs less than in a can. At P13.50 per can of 330 milliliters, a can is more expensive than a plastic bottle at P15.50 for 500 ml. For an additional P2, you get 170 ml more or 1.18 centavos per ml vs. the four centavos per ml you pay for the first 330 ml in a can.
If three people share two bottles of 500 ml at a cost of P31 and drink 333 ml each, they pay only P10.33 per drink versus P13.50 per drink from a 330 ml can. Sorry, I don’t have the price of the one-liter bottle, but this should even cost less per drink.
Older people often drink daily expensive medicine and completely follow the dosage their doctors give them. There can be room for savings here.
A known drugstore charges P57 per 10 mg of a well-known cholesterol–lowering statin, P68 for 20 mg and P88 for 40 mg.
If the daily dosage is 10 mg, the 20 mg product may be purchased and cut into two pieces with a pill cutter, reducing the cost to P34 per 10 mg and saving P23 per 10 mg.
Please make sure you check with your doctor and do it only with his approval. The efficacy of the product might be affected by the cutting.
You shouldn’t do it if the cutter doesn’t cut straight or the pill crumbles. The other half for the next day may also need good storage in an air-tight container.
The savings can be considerable on a 10 mg dosage, using the 20 mg pill, at P23 per day or P690 per month or P8,280 per year. At a net yield of 5.6 percent, P8,280 is how much you get on a placement of P147,857 for one year.
There is an old expression: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Exercise and other activities can help prevent sickness that costs money. You can also exercise your creativity to make or save money.
(e-mail: elzosa@yahoo.com.)
(April 30, 2004 issue)
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