Frugal living is a lifestyle choice that helps you get smarter with your money, time, and effort. Once you understand the concept fully and implement it, you will find new ways to save for your future while still enjoying the quality of life you deserve. This post is filled with ideas to help you get started with frugal living.
The word frugal is often confused with being cheap and sacrificing the quality of living, but it doesn’t have to be so. It’s more of a smart approach one can include in daily life and allocate time and money to the best of one’s interests, without sacrificing everything. Frugal living can help you develop healthy money habits and save a big amount for what’s more important to you.
What is Frugal Living?
Frugal living means when you are aware of your expenditure and be thrifty and economical with finance and resources. It’s all about prioritising the money you’re willing to spend, and not spending money on the things that are not important to you.
Frugal spenders will often interrogate themselves when making a purchase:
- Is this needed just now or can wait?
- Have I checked all the affordable options?
- Where does it stand on my priority list?
Frugal spenders have the final goal of being conscious of what they are willing to spend more money on versus what they’re willing to cut back on.
Does Frugal Mean Cheap?
The difference between being frugal and cheap is that- being cheap is a flaw in someone’s character whereas frugal is someone by choice. A cheap person will go to a shop and buy a product with the lowest price tag without verifying the quality of that product. However, a frugal person will look for quality items that will last a long time instead of buying cheap ones that will have to be replaced sooner.
Frugal Living
- Focuses on quality
- Budget focused
- Prioritise spending
so he/she can focus on things that matter most
Cheap Living
- Focuses on price
- No budgeting
- Cares about only spending less
Is it Worth Being Frugal?
There might be various questions coming into your mind while choosing to be frugal.
- What are the benefits of living frugally?
- Can frugal living make me rich?
- How and where to start from?
Frugal living is all about a deeper dive into your financial expenditure so you can accelerate and achieve your financial goals. In simple terms, we choose to spend on items that matter more to us. If you are planning for a foreign trip, new car, house, or anything you wish, you may achieve your goals by budgeting and saving from items you value less in life without really affecting the quality. So, yes, frugal living is worth it!
What are the Benefits of Frugal Living?
- Helps save money. This will, in turn, give one a positive outlook towards life, will help someone during a recession without much stressing on money and focus on job search, will give more freedom on your time, future, and happiness, save money for emergency health care and so much.
- Will indirectly save the environment. When living frugally you tend to reduce, reuse, and recycle things.
- Helps you be focused. You can prioritize your expenses.
There is a saying “Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor”. By changing our spending and saving habits, we can make a good percentage of savings. Start gradually, and make 5 tips part of your daily life; if that doesn’t suit you, you can experiment with other options. By month end, you will be surprised to see the amount you save and gradually this will become a habit.
Why not we go back to the old school days and note down our monthly expenses? This way we can list the items where we are spending mindlessly. My frugal living tips might not match yours but be creative with saving and be more cautious about your spending. Pen down the areas that eat up your money most like food, house rent or loan, transportation, OTT subscriptions, apparel, and health care.
Start slowly, and don’t overdo you can achieve your goals without taking a toll on value, occasional splurge, healthy diet with quality food.
50 Frugal Living Tips for a Better Tomorrow:
Grocery and cooking on a budget
- Don’t pay for stuff you can grow for free. Kitchen gardening small and daily items can help you here.
- Since grocery takes a lot from our salary, do a monthly budget and cut your grocery costs by buying in bulk online using coupons and on sales. Buying in bulk has two advantages you get at least one item for free and while buying you can check items which is the best deal with value on return. Some awesome online shops include Amazon pantry, Boxed, Walmart grocery, Peapod, Instamart, Flipkart, Blinkit, JioMart, and BigBasket. Do double-check on the items added to the cart if you really want all.
- Never be afraid to negotiate and bargain in local markets.
- Meal planning at the start of a month not only helps give you back your time but also you are organized. Plan ahead, cook, and prepare tons of tasty meals to keep you eating well on a dime!
- Eat at home and save a ton. There are many healthy and delicious recipes available on the internet. Lockdown got our inner chef come alive, so why invest in Starbucks, CCD, or Barista when we can create Dalgona at home once in a while?
- Don’t waste the leftovers from your pantry. Be creative and experiment with your cooking skills. You will end up surprising yourself.
- Pack home-cooked food for the office.
Transport Factor
- Buying a car is a luxury. Or it’s good to budget on necessary things first and then think if you can afford the luxury. Let budget decide if one can buy a fancy car, reused car or a car one can afford. As buying a car brings extra expenditures like gas, maintenance, tax, and so on.
- Opt for carpooling groups, public transport, biking, cycling, or walking to the office.
Staying in Budget
- Downsizing your home will give back your maintenance cost, mortgage cost, and time from cleaning.
- Use stuff you can get for free and today we have abundant resources over the internet. You can find free stuff in Facebook groups or try the site freecycle.
- Sell things that are now a burden to you. There are many online selling apps – Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Poshmark, Olx, and Bonanza.
- Shopping for new furniture is expensive at times in home goods stores, start going to yard sales, garage sales, the Facebook Marketplace, or any other thrift store for furniture.
Frugal Fashion
- First, stop impulse buying and repurpose/creatively reuse the awesome clothes we already have in the wardrobe. A bit of sewing knowledge can give your old outfit a fresh look.
- Thrift stores are always a good option. To name a few Thred Up, Tradesy , Bodements
- Check YouTube hauls for the best sales from online shops like Meesho in India.
- Ditch the manicures and pedicures at a fancy salon and DIY at home.
Entertainment
- Date nights at home can be entertaining too. Do cooking together, binge-watching, Karaoke, and board game nights.
- Opt out of membership or subscriptions you don’t use. It can be gym, use YouTube exercise videos instead. Also OOT platforms you don’t watch seldom can be canceled, instead, use Telegram or other free platforms.
- Ditch cable if you are still using as there are enough online streaming sites to keep one entertained.
- Use libraries for books, magazines, and movies.
- Frugal travelling can be achieved by planning a trip way before or travelling during off seasons.
- Cut down on smoking, beverages, and alcohol.
Personal Finance
- Pay off your debt. Apply the Debt Snowball/Debt Avalanche method to become debt-free fast.
- Buy stuff with cash. When we physically handle money, we tend to be more careful about our expenditures.
- Avoid using credit cards.
- Create a monthly budget and track your income and expenses.
- Keep some money aside as an emergency fund for critical times.
- Get an insurance to secure your future and health. Automate the payment method as it will bind you to keep aside the portion of money untouched.
Save at Home
- Unplug chargers or electronic devices when not in use.
- Lower the electric bill by switching lightbulbs to LED. Also, switch off the light fan when no one is in the room.
- Don’t leave the water running.
- Use cotton cloth diapers for babies instead of disposable ones.
- Wash clothes with powdered ones as liquid ones cost you more. Hang clothes to dry instead of using a dryer.
- Use home remedies and DIY whenever possible. We can check for YouTube videos too for fixing household goods sometimes.
- Add or remove a layer of clothes before turning on the thermostat or turning on the air conditioner.
- Make compost from food scraps. Great food for your garden and will also need fewer garbage bags to dump scraps. Reuse grocery plastic bags as trash bags in your own home.
- Recycle birthday and Christmas cards. The gift wrap papers can be reused too. Also, make gifts on your own instead of buying one.
- Try a low-buy or no-spend challenge, 4-5 days a month. Go for only essentials like gas, and food.
- Use every bit of your child’s notebook.
- Reuse baby clothes and toys for your toddler. Go ask your relatives if their kids have toys and clothes they want to give away that will fit your baby.
- Women can switch to a menstrual cup. Use reusable cloth menstrual pads w/Velcro.
- Use items to every bit. Like toothpaste, shower gel, and creams are never empty. If you cut the plastic or keep them upside down you will be surprised to see the amount left in it.
- Use a tracker to check on your gas, and oil consumption.
- Before you wanna buy something you want why not try checking the price history of the products from Price History, Keepa, or Amazon price tracker?
- Use old clothes for kitchen purposes or dusting.
- Use hand towels instead of paper towels.
- Learn new skills over YouTube or Pinterest and discover new ideas. These are platforms with vast resources to utilize.
- Side hustle is another good option for some extra money in your account.
I hope this helps you start your frugal living journey. These simple tricks will keep you safe on the hardest and poorest of days. And surely you can save for what you want to spend. This will take time so be patient, and consistent, and spend cautiously and wisely.
