TILT # 32 - Figure out how to creatively make your money stretch (frugal tip #3)

I apologize. I started a short series on my frugality tips some time ago and completely fell off the wagon writing about my tips. For those of you who actually read my blog semi-regularly, that series started at TILT # 24 and stopped at #26. Here I am to complete sharing what worked for me in my early years of adulthood, living under the poverty line. This # 3 tip blew my mind when I realized the difference that can be made just by the way we ask for things. Ironically, 3 decades later, in grad school, my final project seems to be circling around the power and impact of asking questions.

Frugality tip # 3 is to figure out how to creatively make your money stretch. As a scholarship student, I was given a monthly stipend of about Cad$425 to live on. That paid for rent, utility bills, food, and anything else I needed or wanted outside of school books like clothes, bus tickets, entertainment, etc. As you can imagine, eating out was was an extreme luxury, even at the university cafeteria. I could not afford occasionally, much less regularly, a basic lunch tray at McGill which would include a main dish, a couple of side dishes, a dessert, and a drink. Then one day, at the Education building café, this is what I observed:

Student: I’d like a cheese sandwich please. ($3.00 on the menu)

Café staff: What sort of bread?

Student: Onion roll please. ($0.25 cents extra)

Café staff: Buttered?

Student: Yes

Café staff: Anything else in the sandwich?

Student: Nope. Just the cheese.

Café staff: OK. $3.25, please.

So, this Canadian student got a plain cheddar cheese onion roll sandwich for $3.25.

Here is what I, the international student, stumbled upon in my 2nd term at McGill:

Me: I’d like an onion roll with butter please. ($0.25)

Caf staff: Anything else?

Me: Hmm. I’d like a slice of cheddar cheese, please. ($0.25)

Caf staff: Anything else?

Me: No thanks. That’s all.

Caf staff: 50 cents, please.

I took my simple cheese sandwich with glee, popped it into the microwave for 30 seconds to melt the cheese, and enjoyed my "dining out" treat! 50 cents for my version of a “cheese sandwich”. I discovered this at the end of Year 1 at McGill and enjoyed this treat once a week for the next 3 years. I felt like a queen for being able to “eat out”. Can you feel my joy way back then? I still smile widely thinking of this discovery. 😊😊😊

Decades later, I have introduced my hot-and-buttered-onion roll-with-a-slice-of-cheese meal to my kids. It's one of the simple lunches we/ they make themselves and these days, I have the budget to add more cheese as well as colourful veggies plus dip to my simple meal. See photos below.

PS - These days, I see students “working” on their laptops at places like Starbucks. Even if you were to choose the cheapest drink (I often see the Large-sized cups), that’s perhaps a $3 expense every day. Multiply that by a modest 4 days a week and 52 weeks later (if you took summer courses as I did), you've spent more than $600 on just coffee. That's fine, I suppose, if you enjoy coffee but if you do not really need Starbucks coffee, then consider working in the campus library. Bring your own water bottle or drink humble water from the water fountain and you've just saved for a mini vacation. In my case, this money saved paid for my 4 week trip across North American on a Greyhound bus where I got to stop in 12 cities. Wanna hear about that one? 😉