Midlife Crisis at (almost) 30?!

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I'll be turning 30 this October and I feel really old. I guess it's because as early as the age of 29, I started reflecting on my life, what I've accomplished and if I'm ready for what the future has in store for me. I never thought I'd experience midlife crisis this early, but, I did. And, for some people, they might think I'm lucky.

Well, I'll somewhat agree with them. I'm lucky that I am having this realization now than later because it's still early for me to change what needs to be changed.

One of the major things in my life that I need to change aside from my health (yes, I'm working on losing weight and being healthy) is how I am doing financially. I admit, most of my life, I've lived one day at a time, not thinking too much about the future. And, because of that, I haven't saved up for my future yet.

The thing is, I believed that it was okay that I don't have much saved up since I'm helping my mother financially. I was earning Php 22,000 to Php 32,000 (about $700) monthly as a call center supervisor before, and people think I've got a whole lot of money saved up in a bank. Honestly, I don't.

We're not rich, but, we're not poor either. But, I guess, this is all because I believe that life is too short so I should enjoy life and not worry too much about my future. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a happy-go-lucky girl. I don't spend my money on gadgets, or anything expensive. It even took me a year to decide to get myself a brand new cellphone model even when I could've done it in less than 2 months with my salary. I guess I was really determined to help my mother and make her and my brother happy. There's nothing wrong with that. I still want to make them happy. But, until a few years ago, I started to also think about ME.

My partner Mai and I have been together for almost 5 years now and all I can say is having her in my life helped me in thinking about the future. We now have our own plans on how we want to live our lives together. And this resulted to my being a frugal so we can finally save up for our simple and big plans for our future together.

What I love about this new phase in my life is I started taking advantage of whatever freebie, giveaway or discounts I can avail for whatever product or service out there. I even started to search the web for the latest coupons that we can avail locally. I never realized that there's a VAST resource out there for frugals like me (yes, I'm one of you now! *LOL*), like Savings Home Depot promo codes or price comparisons at Shopping.com.

Most frugals out there would probably have a couple of cards like this in their wallets:

Pictured above are the following cards:

• Shopwise The Wise Card – shoppers' membership card where you can earn points while you shop at any Shopwise branch and exchange them for gift certificates, rebates, etc.
• Jollibee Card – entitles me to the free offer of the month upon completion of the food purchase requirement.
• Mercury Drug Suki Card – I can avail of discounts on participating products and earn points when I buy anything from any Mercury Drug branch.
• SM Advantage Card – I know a lot of Pinoy shoppers have this because of the big discounts and freebies we can get from this reward program.
• Plus Rewards Program – I got this from Electroworld when I bought my laptop. I haven't exchanged it yet for a permanent card, but, I really want to keep this because I can use it at different participating stores like Abenson, Walter Mart, and Avant. Who knows, I might even get a coupon code for Dell from Electroworld just by earning points.

Aside from the frugal habits I mentioned above, Mai and I are also opening a bank account for our internet cafe. This way, we can lessen our senseless spendings (yes, we're guilty! *LoL*) and focus on growing our business in the future. Plus, I'm also planning on saving up my online earnings on my Unionbank EON account so it'll earn interest instead of withdrawing all my money everytime.

Because of this change in my life, I also started to influence my mother and brother. Heck, I started to influence a lot of other people. I tell people now it's not practical to buy something when they don't need it or when there's a cheaper alternative available in the market.

But, of course, I don't want this phase in my life to be hard work. I still want to enjoy life and have fun, you know. And I'm one of those frugals who save up or choose the cheaper alternatives for everything so I can allocate my resources elsewhere more practical, enjoyable or profitable.

My question for my dear visitors is this...

What frugal habits do you practice?
Care to share what you're saving up for and why?

I would love to read your responses!