10 Tips to Save Money at Restaurants

How To Save Money At Restaurants

First Published: ADawnJournal.com January 15, 2009

We all love to eat out at restaurants. Have you ever noticed that if you follow a few simple steps, you will be able to cut down your restaurant bill in considerable amount, e.g., 20% to 30%. Below, you will find ten tips which will save you some money at restaurants. You may not be able to use all of these; however, I don’t see why can’t you use at least one tip.

1. Beverages Are a Rip off Refrain from drinking alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, juices etc at restaurants. These items have a high markup and you will be saving a lot just by drinking plain water. 

2. Eat Out With Friends and Family Always try to visit restaurants with a few people. The more number of people you have, the better. It’s simple Economies of scale. Your meal will cost more if you are alone and you will be wasting foods because items are so plentiful. Example: if you have five people, you don’t need to order five main dishes. Order three main courses and two appetizers or salad. 

3. Coupons Save You Money Use coupons. Find coupons in the newspaper, in the mail, on restaurant’s website, sometimes on the takeout menu. Also, if you join their emailing list, restaurants send out promotional coupons via email once in a while.

4. Look for Deals Always beware of special day deals, e.g., “kids eat free night”, “parents eat free night”, “birthday deal night”. Restaurants often offer deals on one slower night of the week such as Monday night, Tuesday night etc. By eating on these nights you will be able to save a lot. 

5. Lunch is Better Than Dinner Lunch will always cost you less than dinner. Lunch menus are often similar to dinner menus but you will be paying a lot less just for eating at a different time of the day.

6. Leftovers Should Not Stay Behind Do not leave your leftovers behind. Pack them up and they will save you money at home on the next day.

7. Avoid Appetizers Appetizers  or deserts are unnessery, wasteful, and usually cost a lot (another high markup item). By the time I finish eating main course at a restaurant, I find it hard to eat anything else. 

8. Special of the Day Before start browsing the menu, ask if they have any special of the day. Special of the day always provides better deal than items on the menu. 

9. Combo Makes Sense When ordering, pick combo or tiered meals instead of picking individual items. Combo means always cost less than if those same items were picked individually.

10. Plan Ahead and Stay Within Your Limit Plan ahead. Decide how much you want to spend and check a few restaurant websites to see where you can get a better deal. Also, plan how many times in a month you want to dine out. Do not cross your monthly set limit to visit restaurant and do not go over your decided amount to spend. 

Singapore Travel Diary (Part 2) : Impressions & Highlights

Singapore Travel Blog: Part 1

Next Day: A Busy Day Sightseeing

Next day I had a tour arranged from 9 to 1. The tour operator picked me up at the hotel and it was very busy day for the next few hours. I visited popular places like:

Little India
China Town and the ancient Thian Hock Keng Temple
Marina Bay and Singapore's iconic Merlion
National Orchid Garden (part of the Singapore Botanic Gardens)
And much more

Singapore is very neat and clean city. Its downtown has lots of skyscrapers and has the look and feel of a downtown in a western country. I noticed that the skyscrapers and tall buildings have different styles and poses different from the architectural beauty of skyscrapers in New York or Toronto. I liked it because it looked different than what I was used to seeing in North America.

I will not detail each place I visited because I captured most of it in my video and pictures and you can see them on my YouTube and Instagram.

Maxwell Hawker Centre Singapore - Famous Street Food

Maxwell Hawker Centre is a famous street food court in Chinatown, Singapore. This is the best place to try Singaporean dishes served by various street food stalls in one place. There are tables and chairs to sit down and enjoy all the food under the same roof.

You will find street food stall like Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken that was endorsed by celebrities like Anthony Bourdain and the Michelin Guide. But there is always a lineup, so I decided to try the next one without a lineup. I was told that any stalls in Hawker’s Market would taste as good as Tian Tian.

Any items here are extremely cheap and the taste and quality are mind blowing. I tried the famous Hainanese chicken rice and it cost me only $3.50. Another time I was planning to try the hotel buffet, but it was way expensive at $70. So I walked about 15 minutes to another street food complex and had 7 items only for $5.80. It was so much that I couldn’t eat it all and tipped the server, which made her day.

Singapore: Time to Leave

My 2 days in Singapore are almost over and I am heading to the airport for Melbourne, Australia. I found Singapore to be a very clean and beautiful city. You will not see any homeless people on the street and everywhere is very neat and clean.

I heard laws are very strict in Singapore. For example, you cannot eat on the street while walking or even chew gum. If you are eating at a street food vendor, you will have to finish eating there.

I will be taking a low-cost airline, Scoot, owned by Singapore Airlines and I will write my experience in the next blog.

Bankrupt Nortel, Mutual Funds, and Invest Now

Stocks, Mutual Funds, and Your Financial Goals

First Published Date : January 22, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

In my book Invest Now I mentioned that mutual funds are a less risky investment product than stocks and really suit those who are looking to keep risks at a minimum. I always come across financial gurus and regular investors complaining about the cost of mutual funds. However, they always fail to mention that stock investors may lose all their money if they pick the wrong stocks, but mutual fund investors are very unlikely to lose everything even if they pick the wrong mutual funds.

Just look at what happened to recently bankrupt Nortel. At the peak of the tech bubble, this superhero was trading at $1,231. And now its stocks are worthless. Let’s say you put in $100,000 in Nortel stock a week ago, or a year ago. How much is your $100,000 worth now? Nothing. How about the same $100,000 invested in a mutual fund a week or a year ago? It’s hard to say how much it would have been worth now (based on what you bought); but you can say in confidence that you would not have lost all your money—although you may have paid $2000 fees. Which one do you think is better? Paying a few thousand dollars in fees and keeping your money, or losing all your money without paying any fees?

The problem with stock is that it is extremely hard to pick winning individual stocks. On the other hand, mutual funds are designed for average investors; as a result, it’s not that hard to pick a mutual fund with a moderate rate of return. However, you need to be careful so you don’t end up paying hefty fees. In Invest Now, I discussed how you can invest in mutual funds without paying lots of fees. Also, I emphasized low-cost index funds. Index funds are not actively managed funds: no portfolio managers run the fund. Index funds mirror the market performance of an index by buying stocks or other instruments that match the underlying index’s composition.

In order to be a successful investor and realise your financial goals, you need to avoid unnecessary risks and paying sky-rocketed fees. Mutual funds, especially index funds, can offer all these with minimal effort and time. Even when everything goes wrong, it is unlikely that you will lose all your money with mutual funds. However, such is not the case with stocks. Just ask investors across the globe that were holding Nortel in their portfolio; they will be glad to tell you, had they known it before, they would have held mutual funds. Even the riskiest fund on earth with the highest fees would not have wiped out all their money in one day like Nortel did.

Munich Soccer Stadium

Sports - Munich Soccer Stadium

If you are a massive football fan then you will appreciate how well football stadiums are built and how they can have a big impact when they are fully built. One of the biggest stadiums in the world is the Munich Stadium which is held in Germany. In the next few paragraphs we are going to talk about the different aspects of stadium and the history behind it.

Some facts about Munich Stadium in Germany

• The Capacity of this stadium holds 80,000 People.

• It has some major football world cup events

• It has been allowed to provide concerts in the stadium which has attracted some biggest names in the music industry.

If you do go to Germany and you are a football fan you should not miss this chance to visit the Munich stadium. You will be breath taken on how big the stadium actually is and you will be impressed on how beautiful the designers have made the stadium. If you get chance to watch a game inside the stadium you will find that the atmosphere will be electric. The crowd gets noisy and lively like a massive block party.

This stadium has been built for over 40 years and it has some had some amazing events. The first biggest event that was held in Munich stadium was in fact the world cup in 1974. Due to the capacity size it allowed Germany to hold the final and they produced an emphatic win against the Netherlands which came to 2-1. This produced the record attendance for a football game in Munich. The Munich stadium also held the Euro 1988 Cup. West Germany only got to play one game in that cup at Munich stadium in there group a match which was against Spain and they won 2-0.

England football team came across to the Munich stadium for a friendly in 1978 which they beat West Germany 2-1. England also came back to the Munich Stadium for the 2002 World cup Qualifier which they beat Germany 5 -1.

This stadium has also produced the Olympics in the summer of 1972. They allowed the Olympics at the Munich stadium due to the fact that it has a track around the center of the pitch.

If you are looking to take a tour around the stadium then one major part would be to see if you are able to go onto the pitch. If you are looking to go on the pitch then you are better to email the company to see if you will able to go on. Normally they allow people to go onto the pitch but only for a few minutes.

As you can see this stadium have had some of the most exciting football tournaments in the world which has provided the Munich stadium to gain some historic events since it has been built. It is defiantly a must if you are looking to go to Munich in Germany.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Travelnowsimply.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Entrepreneur Journey site. This article originally published on the above website on March 5, 2010.

Ten Tips To Stay Debt Free

How To Stay Debt Free

It all starts with a small amount. At first sight, you think this is nothing – you will be able to manage it, and will get rid of it shortly. However, the further you go, the harder it becomes. And this small, manageable amount starts becoming unmanageable. It takes over your life. Yes, I am talking about debts.

Want “The Best Advice” on avoiding debt? The answer is: not to    have any debt at all from the beginning. Follow these simple tips to stay out of debt:

·   Pay cash. Paying cash forces you to spend only the money you have. If you don’t have the money – it means you can’t afford it. Don’t buy things you can’t afford.

·   Use credit card only if you are able to pay in full each month. Beware of credit cards. Most of us fall into debt trap because of credit cards. If you aren’t able to control credit cards, get rid of it.

·   Avoid falling behind on your payments for your bills. If you start falling behind even only once, it will be hard to catch up.

·   Know your monthly income and expenses from all sources. To live debt free, income has to be greater than expenses. Maintain this ratio by cutting expenses.

·   Use personal finance software to track your income and expenses. When you visualize your spending pattern, it’s a lot easier to analyze and comprehend where your money is going.

·   Spend within your limits. Don’t buy stuff just because they are on sale. If you don’t need it, sale is not going to do any good.

·   Always buy on sale. If you are certain that you will be using items on sale over and over, buy them when they are on sale and stock up. Avoid paying full price.

·   If you already have accumulated credit card or other consumer debts, pay them off ASAP. Always pay over the minimum. Start paying off the smaller debts and move to the larger ones.

·   Set long-term and short-term realistic, doable goals. For example, short-term goals can be paying off smaller debts and long-term goals can be paying off larger debts and start saving money.

·   Be realistic. Set attainable and achievable goals. If your spending is more than your income, cut down on spending. However, if this is not possible for you, increase your income and stay in debt-free positive territory.