101 Ways To Spend Less In Nigeria (85-99)

BANKING, INVESTING

85. If you are opening a domiciliary account, attach it to a savings account: Opening your Dorm account with a savings account will help you avoid the cost associated with operating a current account.

86. Use a savings account for your business deals instead of a current account: while you can only operate a salary account and a company account with a checking/current account, if you need another account for other businesses, use a savings account for the interest that will accrue. These days many people use internet banking to transfer fund instead of their check books. Also, ask your bank for a higher savings deposit/fixed deposit interest rate, you never can tell what they will give you because you ask and are willing to negotiate.

87. Shop banks, especially for your salary account: there is no harm in doing a little due diligence research on different banks and their interest rates, number of branches they have, how much it costs to transfer to and from them. Though it is not compulsory to open your salary account with a particular bank, some favor opening their salary accounts with the bank their company/employer uses mainly for paying salaries so as to receive their credit alerts on the very day the salary is paid. Still others consider salary advance, loan-friendliness and overdraft charges in choosing their bank.

88. Go against the crowd when investing: the richest investor in the world Warren Buffet says “Be greedy when others are fearful and be fearful when others are greedy”. Going against the crowd takes a lot of boldness and self confidence, because it means you are buying at a cheaper price because everyone is dropping the stock. If you get it right, then you will become very rich, if not, you will have to bite your fingers.

89. Try not to use other bank’s ATM to avoid paying N65 withdrawal fees: though you will only be charged after the third time you use another bank’s ATM, but it is still instructive to avoid using it altogether so you don’t lose money unnecessarily.

90. Use POS to pay: some banks/card companies reward you when you pay at retailers using their POS terminals. It sure pays to ditch cash sometimes (see tip 7).

CHARITY

91. Give without spending your cash: if you didn’t know it was possible to give to charity without spending cash, check my article on it. You can give leftover food items, used clothes, and other things you consider waste but which is still useful for the poor and less privileged in the society.

HEALTH , PHARMACEUTICALS, INSURANCE

92.  It is cheaper to buy generic drugs than brand name: While most health professionals prefer Roche’s brand of Ceftriaxone- Rocephin, there are cheaper alternatives that are arguably as efficacious as the brand. Ask around before you buy brand names, you may not be getting more for paying more.

93. Avoid medical tourism if you can. I know of a woman who left Lagos for London to book to have her fibroid removed. The surgeon who did the procedure was a visiting consultant based in LUTH, Idi-Araba. Also, a colleague of mine told me of her aunt who went to Saudi Arabia to see a renowned dermatologist. Alas, the renowned dermatologist was her niece’s dermatology professor in Sagamu. You might think it is cheaper to go to India, or USA, or London for a procedure which can be done effortlessly in UCH Ibadan.

94. Use an hospital in a neighboring state: just as I told you it is cheaper to live in some states, you might also consider getting the health care you need from another state. We routinely saw patients come to my school’s teaching hospital in Sagamu from Lagos because it they spent less time on a queue, it was cheaper and was not very far from Lagos. In fact UCH Ibadan increased the cost of Surgical procedures because patients were coming in from Lagos to have their surgery simply because it was cheaper.

      Anyway, it is still cheaper to have Heart Surgery in UCH Ibadan than in Reddington. lol

95. Use health insurance:  the beauty of insurance is that it puts your mind at rest that you are covered. You can simply walk into an NHIS accredited hospital and get a full check up on your insurance bill. And if you have any medical emergency it will save you the financial stress most uninsured people face. Many major surgeries are covered by NHIS. Just make sure to know the details of the insurance plan you are under/subscribing to, to know what it covers and what it doesn’t.

SCHOOL, BOOKS

96. Pay your tuition on time to avoid late payment fees: Late payment charges of any kind are always painful to pay knowing that just one week or one month before you could have paid less.

97.  Instead of buying new textbooks, try to get them free from a senior colleague or elder brother: some fathers kept their textbooks for their children to use; Seriously, I had a colleague in medical school that used the very same text his father used. Well, while that is frugality taken to the extreme but it could save you money to use an older brother or senior colleague’s books instead of buying yours new.

98.  Buy used textbooks either from older colleagues or online: if you can’t get free textbooks, then you can consider buying used ones. Online you can get used textbooks from amazon.com, chegg.com, abebooks.com and half.com (owned by eBay). And you can compare prices of textbooks at bigwords.com and dealoz.com

      

      And don't forget to use coupons.

99.  You can rent a book or swap one you have read with someone instead of buying a new one: on such sites such as paperbackswap.com (USA), bookmooch.com (intl), whatsonmybookshelf.com(Intl), readitswapit.com (UK), and readerunited.com (Intl). 

      

      Bookcrossing.com (Intl) is more of a free book-sharing site.

To rent a book online, use booksfree.com. It is a cool website for renting books, and it also has audio books too. But audible.com is the best for getting more audible titles.

N.B: To read books and download them online, either for free or paid, there are a couple including scribd, bookboon, and so on. Hope to write an article on them soon.