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Today, I think I figured out another reason why I spend less money and thus make my budget planning easier than everyone else. It’s not because I waste less money, nor is it because I buy less things. It’s basically because I stretch the use of my dollar.

What do I really mean by that? Well, I realized that every time I feel that something needs to be replaced, I end up using it for another 6 months. I still remember the day before the wedding when my mom was complaining that my pair of pants was just really old!

When I think that something is still usable, I tend to keep using it even though it might not look the newest. I’m not sure where I picked this up, but I’ve found that this single trait has saved me so much money all through life. For example, I am using a laptop that’s 5 years old. Sure, it’s a little slow, but it does the job perfectly because this laptop is used to blog and answer emails. Comparing this to someone who might have bought two laptops in the same time frame, I’ve just saved the price of one laptop.

So if we really want to keep more of our money, all we need to do is stretch every dollar. Sometimes, these things that we want to throw away is still usable and very functional. Stop throwing them away just because things get a little old. By keeping the same thing that we sometimes want to throw away, we can really spend much less money.