Saving money: Cutting corners without sacrificing

Both kids studied outside of Turkey at private universities, which was not cheap. Four times a year I had to have money saved to make the installments set up by their learning institutions. This required me to become very, very good at saving money.

I have found ways to cut corners on my spending without sacrificing too much of my previous lifestyle.

Shop around!: For my staples, I keep an eye on most of the major stores: Migros, Bim and Şok are the ones closest to me and, recently, Real market has been added to the list. I note the prices of such things as dishwashing soap, shampoo, body washes, laundry detergent, shaving cream and toothpaste. I also keep up with the prices of lentils, bulgur, rice, flour, sugar, salt, eggs and spices. When something goes on sale (often as a loss leader), I stock up. For example, a couple of weeks ago, Şok market cut its price of a six-kilogram container of a good quality, brand name dishwashing liquid almost in half. That dishwashing liquid will last me months. Another shop was selling five-kilogram bags of flour for around TL 5. Keeping your eyes peeled for bargains and snatching them up when they appear is a sure-fire way to save money.

In addition to shopping around, consider not always using brand name products. Sometimes, I’ll admit, brand name products can be better than their no-name competitors (like, for me, dishwashing liquid), in which case I would say stick with the brand name. However, if the product is similar or you can’t tell the difference, go with the less expensive one. For example, I use milk for coffee. That’s it. So for me there is no reason to pay almost TL 3 for a liter of the brand name when I can go to Real market and get Tip brand milk for less than half the price per liter. I have also found that I can get toothpaste and shaving cream consistently for lower prices by not going for the brand name.

Clean green!: When you make your own cleaning products, you end up saving a lot of money. As a side benefit, your house will end up smelling really great. In February of last year, I wrote an article that has some recipes so that you can make your own green products (http://www.todayszaman.com/news-235186-cleaning-green.html).

Eat healthy!: Eating healthy will help preserve your health and consequently help you save on medicine from the pharmacy and/or doctor’s bills. Most people know that a healthy diet consists of fruits and vegetables and drinking liquids such as water or herbal teas as a minimum.

As with the staples, you can shop around for comparative prices on your fruits and vegetables. Frequently, I find that some venders discount produce that is just starting to turn. One such vegetable that often finds its way to the discount bin is the tomato. When tomatoes start to turn, they get soft. Soft tomatoes are not so great for salads, but they are perfect for tomato sauces, soups or menemen.

Try quinoa!: Quinoa (pronounced, Wikipedia tells me, KEEN-wa) is now available in Turkey. I found it in two places: at Metro for TL 6 per half-kilo package and at Eco Health Food store in Taksim for TL 10 per half-kilo package.

I had heard about quinoa before but only tried it recently when my cousin -- a lifelong vegan -- gifted me with a box of it for my birthday.

Of course, I immediately set about figuring out how to cook it. I went to the trusty Internet and found that it cooks very much like rice does, but a little bit faster. Once cooked, I put it with some stir fried veggies and sat down to try it. It was amazing!

Nutritionally, quinoa is high in protein; in fact, it contains a complete protein -- all nine essential amino acids. It also is a good source of manganese, magnesium, phosphorus and folate.

Another benefit of quinoa is that one cup of the grain (technically, seed) uncooked yields about two and a half to three cups of the cooked product. It can be stored in the fridge and will last up to a week.

Moreover, quinoa is a gluten-free grain that people with celiac disease are able to consume. If your digestive tract is weak, some nutritionists recommend soaking the quinoa in fresh water for eight to 24 hours to start breaking down the phytic acid that is found in all grains, beans, nuts and seeds. Soaking the quinoa removes the enzyme inhibitor, so the enzymes are free to start breaking down the quinoa before it hits your digestive tract.

Finally, quinoa is versatile. You can have it in an omelet for breakfast or served as a grain for lunch and dinner.

Eat (mostly) in!: By keeping your “paket servis” meals to a minimum, you can save lots of money. Often for the same price you pay for delivery service, you can make three times as much of the food.

But sometimes you just want to order out. In that case, you should! I find, though, that it’s helpful to order a main meal and then help stretch that meal by preparing side dishes at home.

If you are ordering pide or kebabs, you can order the 1.5 portion size, which is often enough for two or three people if you supplement it with homemade sides.

Freeze meals!: You might say, but I’m ordering out because I don’t feel like cooking. Well, this is where freezing meals can really come in handy. Whenever I make soup, I make huge batches of it and freeze the leftovers in individual Ziploc bags. I also do this with banana bread, bread, stir-fried vegetables, meat (raw, prepared and cooked), sauces, tomato paste, spinach, strawberries and, well, almost anything!

Freezing food has many benefits. You can take advantage of sales on meat, poultry, fruits or vegetables that would ordinarily go bad very quickly. When you don’t feel like cooking, you can pull ready-made soups and meals from the freezer, thaw them and cook them. You can also save money on electricity -- a full freezer takes less energy to keep cold than an empty one. Additionally, you can feed unexpected guests at a moment’s notice.

When freezing food, you want to make sure that you store it right. Make sure that all of the air is out of the package, lest you end up with freezer burn. If you are freezing something that could get stuck together like pancakes or bananas or tomato paste, try first putting them on a Silpat on a cookie tray and leaving them in the freezer for an hour. Then you can take the frozen items and put them in one bag or container without the fear that they will clump all together.

Note that frozen fruit becomes mushy when thawed and so it is good for cakes, pies and smoothies, but not to be served as a bowl of fruit.

Know your bank!: Most of us who have opened up bank accounts here know about the process -- the mounds of paperwork and the endless signing of forms that we have to pretend to understand. But rarely do we know about the fees involved.

After almost 10 years of being here, I just learned that banks charge for foreign currency accounts (about TL 5 per month) and, short of closing them, there is nothing you can do about that charge.

The same fee applies to Turkish lira accounts, but if you have two bills automatically deducted from the TL account, the charge will be often be waved. Check with your bank to make sure that applies to you. Some banks will not allow that privilege for those whose account was set up by their employers.

Additionally, you might want to check how much your bank charges for electronic funds transfers (EFTs). I send at least five EFTs a month, so I found a bank that doesn't charge for them -- ING Bank -- a savings of over TL 20.

Over the years, these saving tips have become second nature to me. Now that my “kids” are finishing up with university, I plan to continue on this path.