Time to tighten the household purse strings

By VERONICA CHEROP

In the last few days, Kenyans have been crying over the high cost of living after the VAT 2013 law came to effect. Milk that cost just Sh20 at one of the worst economic times for the country in 2002, now retails at Sh60.

This is an example how prices of the daily consumables have shot up while the income — salary, business or otherwise — has either remained the same or increased by a negligible fraction.

As a family, how do you plan to live ‘within your means’ in regard to this development?

Cut the unnecessary spending

I have seen people filling their supermarket trolleys with expensive junk they do not need. Before you buy those cans of baked beans in tomato sauce, at Sh100 and above, think about buying beans and cooking them. For that amount, you will fill three cans with beans. If the children love the tomato sauce, just add it to your beans.

This will save you some money — which you can top up to buy that packet of milk.

Reduce the number of spreads on the breakfast table. I once went to a friend’s house and found different brands of honey, jam, margarine and other spreads. While they may think this is ‘class’, it is actually a waste of money.

Just get one bottle of the best quality honey and if the children love strawberry jam, buy some and forget about others. In fact, find out ways of making your own jam at home. Besides saving you money, homemade jam is healthier.

There are families whose meals are the true definition of wastage. Why, for example, should you have fried and boiled eggs (protein), sausages (protein), bacon (protein), meatballs (protein) and fried chicken wings (protein) as well as a host of different carbohydrates as breakfast?

Spread these through the week, such as having meatballs on Monday, chicken wings on Tuesday, etc. This is healthier and also saves a huge percentage of your monthly expenditure on food.

Parking charges in Nairobi have been raised from Sh140 to Sh300, while jams (the fuel consuming slow movement) are the same, if not worse.

Now, more than ever, it is prudent to jump into the train or matatu. Apart from sparing the family some extra expenses (fuel and parking), it is also convenient.

If you work in town, for example, but have to pick your spouse from Westlands before heading home to Syokimau in the evening, your spouse can take a matatu from their office to town, then you can head home together.

To succeed in reducing expenses, every family member has to be reading from the same script. Tell the children, for example, why they will start using the school bus instead of having you pick or drop them. If you save on fuel, then you can afford to take them for that long planned holiday upcountry, or to Mombasa or wherever you have been planning on going.

Generally, Kenyans are wasteful. You find a lot of leftover food trashed. I think it is very important to review your cooking habits — after a while you know how much rice everyone eats, for example.

Do not cook too much. And this instruction should be clearly spelt out to the house-help or chef, or whoever prepares meals in your household.

The kitchen budget is usually the highest in any family. If you take attention, such as how long you use a cylinder of gas, a two-kilo packet of sugar, milk, soap etc on average, you will be surprised at how much you save.

Many of us just tell the house-help, “Write the list of what is missing” then buy the items without keeping tabs on the use. With the tough life ahead, business can no longer be as usual.