The festivities are a costly affair! There is shopping to be done and kids are home so food and drink are being consumed so fast.
It is either you plan your budget or ship everyone to shags, yourself included because that plus transport and lunch for work things are just too darn expensive.
But what if you want to do it all without breaking the bank? How do you ball on a budget this festive season?
Among other things, this involves buying commodities, perishables in bulk to cut the costs. It’s that simple. The assumption is that you already know how much is spent weekly or monthly in your household.
Meals
There are three main places to shop from. Marikiti for vegetables, Boma for meat, cow or goat meat, liver, heart and kidneys which make perfect stew for ugali, rice or chapatis.
City Market has all that plus chicken and fish filet. Furthermore, the good thing about City Market is that you are not limited to buy an entire chicken only. There’s the option of purchasing drum sticks, gizzards or breast only.
Another plus is that the prices are not fixed. They go per whatever quantity you want.
Clothes
There is no one person, from kids to adults who do not want new clothes in the festive season. I mean you just cannot show up in shags with old clothes. So shopping is in order, another costly affair.
Hence instead do smart thrifting. Shop at Gikomba, Toi and Ngara to get the good quality outfits for cheaper.
Shopping
Another one that makes up a large part of the budget is house shopping. These include toiletries and perishables like sugar, unga and the like. Here you want to ask everyone you meet where they do their shopping on wholesale.
Find out where these chuoms are and get there. Buy the usual, toilet papers, detergent, sugar, margarine, cooking oil, bathing soaps, toothpaste, body oil and sanitary towels from these wholesale shops and see yourself saving coins like never before.
Promotions and sales
There are sales, discounts and promotions in almost every supermarket this festive season. Therefore be on the lookout for such outlets and purpose to get items from them instead.
Now, most the times the items on sale are customarily not the items that are your everyday picks.
Hustle to save your coins. Ask friends and family what other strategies they are using and decide which ones to implement in your household.
