If you want to live on $200 for two weeks, then this article should help. Stretching your budget for the next 2 weeks can be challenging. But then it depends on how much money you’re looking to stretch.
If you’re not the lavish type who wants to splurge on many things, then living off $10k for two weeks wouldn’t be much of a challenge for you.
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If you’re like me, the convenience infested type of person, then things could get a little challenging as you try to stretch $10k in two weeks while doing whatever you feel like and traveling wherever you want to (still in this two weeks).
In this case, it’s a $200 dollar budget you’re trying to spend.
Without further ado, here are 7 realistic ways to live off $200 dollars in two weeks.
How to Live on $200 for Two Weeks in 7 Sure Ways
Check for Stuff You Really Need
This is survival.
So, gear up.
If you want to live on $200 for two weeks, it means you won’t be buying a lot of stuff you’ll need naturally. You’ll just need to check for the remnants of these items and try to live on them for the next two weeks instead of buying them all over.
Firstly, you’re human. And you’ll need some items whichever way you put it. These items are critical to your survival for the next two weeks. Hence, you want to make sure you have them in place.
If you don’t have them or don’t have remnants of the things you’ll need over the next two weeks, you can borrow them.
Or, simply ask for them from a neighbor.
Cook Your Meals
If you must survive, you must learn to cook. It’s one of the most important aspects of survival. Plus, you don’t have to be the best chef in the world to start cooking. In this case, you’re looking to stretch $200 dollars in two weeks.
So, you want to make sure you’re preparing everything you eat all by yourself. In addition, cooking has a ton of benefits. While there are a ton of preservatives that go into junk food, cooked food is more natural and comes with less risk.
You’re more likely to develop obesity from excessive consumption of junk versus cooked food. That said, cooking will not only help you save a lot of money over the course of the next two weeks, it’ll improve your health.
Plus, culinary skills are irreplaceable. You can make up something nice with barely anything if you’re great at cooking. You’re strengthening your body vitals, and saving the day financially.
Skip Junk
If you want to learn how to live on $200 dollars for two weeks, then skip junk. And by junk, I mean every form of it. From snacks to every class of Junk you can find at Chick-fil-A. Truth is, junk can be really addictive.
So, the more you consume it, the more firm it wraps you into its chain of addiction. Even when you don’t want it, you still feel an innermost need to get it. And by that, you spend.
Won’t be most certainly easy, but keeping away junk for the next couple of days or weeks will help you better manage your finances. It’s something you should do for a lifetime; skipping junks.
Skip Beer & Drinks
If you’re the kind and you can’t really stay off drinks, you’ll need to try for the next two weeks.
How about you just stick to water?
It’s expensive to gulp drinks every now and then, and since you’re trying to live on $200 dollars for two weeks, you’re better off without drinks.
Particularly, beer. In the United States, the average cost of beer is around $4 dollars. In one day, taking it thrice is $12 dollars. Over the next two weeks, you’d have spent $84 dollars on beer. And you don’t want that. Better still, skip it.
Take Tap Water
Worry less, tap water isn’t entirely evil. At least, it’s natural and more healthy than bottled water. If you really want to make your budget last, then you want to make sure you’re putting your money in the right place by not spending on what’s not important.
On bottled water. Hence, stick to tap water. It’s expensive to regularly buy water in bottles. They seem cleaner, but if you dig deep, they’re not the most natural lot of water in the world.
You’ve got it running through your taps.
Calculate a Spending Limit
A spending budget can be daily, weekly, or between tag days. And by tag days, I mean a couple of days put together to form a set. That becomes tag days. A spending limit regardless of which one you choose to live by will guide your expenditure.
It’s more like saying you’re not going to spend above this or that amount of money today. It’s that simple, but effective in making sure indeed your budget stretches to cover your expenses before the timeframe.
When it comes to creating a spending limit, there are a couple of options to explore:
- $100/Week: This is a more loose spending limit where you have to spend $100 a week. This can get really tied up in between the days of the week and you soon realize you’ve spent much more than $100/week. While it’s an easy spending limit to gauge, it’s too loose. If you can live off $100 a week, then go for it.
- $14/Day: Spending $14 per day is a very precise spending limit if you want to live on $200 for two weeks. Truth is, this spending limit is very well realistic, and you get to monitor your spending by the day. You don’t get to spend more than you ought to at the end of the first week.
- $40 in 3 Days: $40 dollars in 3 days is still a little bit loose, but you’ll have to monitor your expenses really closely just so you’re not overspending. Going by this spending limit, you’ll have an excess of $14 dollars by the end of two weeks.
- $28 in 2 Days: It’ll be easy to monitor how far you’ve spent if you give yourself a $28 dollar spending limit every two days. So, in two days, you’re living on $28 dollars just so you don’t run out of funds over the next two weeks while stretching your $200 bucks.
- $65 in 5 Days: Still very loose, but not like the very first spending limit on this page. $65 dollars in 5 days would mean you have to spend $13 dollars a day. When broken into daily spending limits, it’s more effective.
- $45 in 4 Days: If you want to learn how to live on $200 for two weeks, then you really need to explore minimum finances and learn to manage your finances. A spending limit of $45 dollars every 4 days over the next two weeks is $11.25 a day. That’s more effective. But if you want to put $45 dollars in your pocket just for the next 4 days, it’ll work.
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Split the Money
Splitting the money is another way to go about this. While you have the money split in whatever percentages, you can utilize one of the daily spending limits to the fullest.
If you’re able to exhaust one part of the split money using a spending limit, then you’ll most certainly be able to live on the other half of the money for the remaining days. But this is only feasible if you split and spend wisely.
So, it’s two weeks.
You can split $200 into any of the percentages:
- 50%: If you have to keep 50%, this means you’d have to live on $50 dollars per week or $100 dollars for two weeks. And this can get really challenging. To make things easier, you can stick to a spending limit or map one out for your newly derived budget.
- 10%: Without having to do a lot of calculation this time, my guess is right. 10 percent makes $20 dollars off $200 dollars. Keeping the small 10% fraction means you’d have to live off $180 dollars.
- 15%: $30 dollars is 15 percent of 200 dollars. You can keep $30 bucks somewhere, and stretch on $200 dollars. At the end of both weeks, you’ll have something to fall back on.
- 22%: Twenty two percent of $200 dollars is about $44 dollars. So, you can decide to keep this in a safe while you stretch the remaining $156 dollars. Realistic enough.
- 17%: You can keep 17% of $200 dollars, which is about $34 dollars, leaving you with $166 dollars to try and live on. 17 percent isn’t a lot of money. And if you have an extra $34 after 2 weeks, it’s something. At least, you won’t be dry broke.
How to Live on $200 for Two Weeks in 7 Sure Ways – Summary
Living off $200 bucks for the next two weeks can be challenging. It can come as a forceful need to develop your savings habit and work on your spending habit.
To do this, you can calculate a daily budget, switch Nestle or some other branded water for tap water, skip beer and go water-only, list out items you’d need for the next two weeks, cook your meals and skip junk.
While these are realistic ways to stretch $200 dollars in two weeks, some of these hacks will ultimately lead to personal self-development.