Frugal living tips are in high demand as frugal living is gaining more popularity because of the skyrocketing prices of everything. The gas, housing, and food prices, everything went up and didn’t seem to come down quickly. Therefore, we must figure out how to keep paying our bills and still have something left at the end of the month.
When you are new to frugal living and you need frugal living tips, you should check out my blog post about budgeting for beginners. Budgeting will come in handy to figure out where you stand financially.
Before you make any changes to your lifestyle, you should know where you can save more. You can do this by looking at your expenses and keeping a budget. You can also apply these tips without having a budget but I don’t recommend it. Having a budget is very important if you want to be more in control of your financial situation.
When you are budgeting and saving the best you can but need a few extra tips to save even more money, keep reading!
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What is Frugal Living?
Frugal living is a way of living where your goal is to never overpay for something and to save money this way. You always look for the best and cheapest option without buying low-quality products.
Frugal living is not the same as being cheap! When you are being cheap, you don’t want to spend money on anything and always look for the cheapest option, often paired with quality decline.
Being frugal is focused on not spending a lot of money. When a frugal person can buy a high-quality product for a higher price that lives longer than low-quality products for years, it’s a good investment and it will save you money in the end! It’s all about saving more without a very noticeable quality of life change.
Being frugal is good if you want to reach your financial goals faster. You can also live extremely frugally for a couple of years and cut yourself some more slack when you start making more money. Do it as strictly or severely as you think is needed but don’t torture yourself trying to save every penny. It should be still livable and even enjoyable to live your everyday life.
In the end, you are doing this to create a better life for yourself, so live as frugal as you need to be able to create a financially free life.
Let’s start sharing a few frugal living tips to help you keep your precious earned money!
11 Frugal Living Tips to Save You Money
1. Finish It
One of the first frugal living tips I’m sharing with you is to finish everything!
This is something most people don’t do. Most people think it will only save them a negligible amount of money so it isn’t worth the effort in their opinion. With frugal living, it’s all the tiny things that matter! Every penny adds up in the end. Save whenever you can even if you don’t gain a lot of money from doing it once. You will end up saving money when you keep doing these things every day and that’s the goal, right?
By finishing it I mean finishing things like getting the last drop out of your shampoo bottle, ketchup bottle, or even toothpaste. You should figure out how to do this to get everything out of it. Here are a few tips from me.
- Shampoo bottle: Use it until you can’t get any more out of it. When you think you’re done, refill the bottle with a little bit of water so you can use it for one or even two more washes.
- Toothpaste: Again, squeeze it until there seems to be nothing left. A bag clip will help you to push the most out of the tube. When you think you’re done, use scissors to cut it open and use what is left in the shell.
- Mayonnaise jar: When there is nothing left for you to scoop, use it to make one last salad by putting the salad in the jar and moving it around until it’s all covered in mayo.
These are a few examples, I’m sure there are many more. See which household items you don’t use until they are really empty and search for some hacks online or create your own!
2. Repurpose
Whenever you think something has its best life, try to find another purpose for it. This can’t be done for every object you own but you can apply it to some if you want to. Giving things a new purpose is a bit like recycling, so it’s also good for the environment! Don’t just throw everything out immediately.
Let me give you a few examples and ideas.
- Worn-out Clothes: From the moment that there are too many holes in a piece of clothing to fix it, you can start using it as a cloth or maybe make some tissues out of it. Side note: this doesn’t work with jeans fabric, it needs to be soft ;).
- Empty Packaging: Glass jars like mayonnaise or jam jars can be used for storing homemade products or as a mason jar to bring salads to work. My grandmother also reuses empty plastic containers that used to contain butter for storing her homemade stew sauce. She loves the size of those containers for one serving when someone wants to eat stew sauce with their fries.
- Old Paper: Through the years you probably will gather a whole bunch of paper files. If you don’t, good for you and the environment! If you do have a lot of paper with only one side printed, you could use the other side as scrap paper. Most kids and young adults (or even adults!) can use this when studying or drawing. Then you don’t have to buy clean paper for them to scribble on while studying.
Because you don’t have to buy new cloths, containers, paper blocks… you will obviously save some money!
3. Minimalism
Frugal living tips and tips for living a minimalistic life sometimes look alike but frugal living and minimalism are not the same thing!
Let me give you a short description of minimalism. Minimalism is a way of life, and it goes further than your finances, it applies to every aspect of your life. Minimalists don’t necessarily want to save money, their goal is more to have a simpler life, creating freedom for themselves and letting go of all the clutter they don’t need. It’s an anti-consumerism lifestyle. They want to spend money but only on the things they value the most and bring them joy.
Minimalism and frugal living can go hand in hand but it doesn’t have to be like this.
However, it is possible to save more money while living minimalistic. When you don’t need a lot of things, it’s only logical that you can save more! You buy less so you will keep more money in your pocket.
Try to think about every purchase you make instead of impulse buying things you don’t actually enjoy in the long run. Buy the things you value and that will bring you joy. You don’t need a lot of stuff to be happy!
4. Use Sun and Wind Energy
Mother nature can help you save money by using its forces.
One of the big money and energy spenders in your house is the dryer. When it’s summertime you should hang your clothes outside to dry so the sun and the wind can do their job (don’t forget to buy some clothespins if you don’t want your clothes to fly around the entire garden). If there is only wind or only sun, your clothes will also get dry but this will take a bit longer. This will take a little more effort but you will save a lot more money!
You can even stop using the dryer in the winter although it’s less fun then. If you have some space in your house and a dryer rack this can get your clothes dry too!
Solar panels are also a good investment when you have a lot of sun hours in your country.
5. Buy Second-Hand
You can buy so many things second-hand, that you would be crazy to buy them new for a much higher price. This principle doesn’t apply to everything but there are a lot of things that are great to buy second-hand!
Say you just left your parent’s house and need new furniture to decorate your new place. You could go buying everything brand new, but why would you? I know it’s nice to have brand new things but when you want to live more frugally, you should consider buying used things too! There are lots of places online and of course the actual thrift stores.
This is one of the great frugal living tips for saving a lot of money! It’s not about saving pennies but really hundreds of dollars for furniture for example. You could also buy second-hand cars, clothes, etc.
Make sure that you can see and inspect the item for flaws before you buy it especially if it’s in a higher price range. It’s always best to check before you buy so you won’t get ripped off.
Buying second-hand is also great for the environment as it is a sort of recycling! You give another life to used items.
6. Fix Instead of Replacing
When something breaks, see if there is a way of fixing it before you think of replacing it. Fixing it is most of the time the cheapest option if you can do it yourself. If you need a professional to fix it, you might consider buying a new item depending on the costs of everything.
Let me give you some examples.
- Your dearest iPhone fell into some water and the camera stopped working. Try letting it rest in rice for a few days, this sooks up the water from the phone and sometimes, it will fix what has been broken!
- You rip a piece of clothing. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to throw away that shirt! Try to fix it with some sewing material or ask your mother or grandmother to help you with it.
- A leaking pipeline or a little hole in a wall. If you are a bit of a handyman (or woman!) you can fix these things yourself.
YouTube also has great DIY tutorials on all kinds of reparations. Before calling a professional, take a look at what you can do on your own!
7. Say No to Disposables
These days, with all the attention going to the environment and climate change, you will find that disposables often have alternatives that can be reused! This is great for the environment but also for your wallet!
When you only buy things you can use over and over again, you will save so much money because you don’t always have to buy new ones.
Personally, I don’t like using fabric tissues. I think it’s a bit dirty to keep them in your pocket all day long and use them again to blow your nose with dirty tissue. So for this one, I will just buy a cheap brandless box of regular paper tissues. But I know a lot of people who don’t have a problem with this.
Something I try to do is bring real cutlery and plastic cups instead of disposable ones when having a picnic.
Another thing is when you go shopping, you should always bring a reusable bag with you to carry your groceries because they charge you for plastic bags. Plastic bags are also no friend to the environment so it’s a win-win.
If you are an animal lover, I would suggest these animal-themed reusable grocery bags, they look very cute and are environmentally friendly as well!
8. Compare Everything
Always comparing everything you buy is one of the great frugal living tips but this will cost you some more effort. You can compare almost every product online by checking out different websites and there are even websites especially meant for comparing prices of products.
When you compare products, make sure that you are comparing the exact same products. Also always check the delivery costs if you are comparing the same product on different websites.
It’s also important to know which features of a product you really need or want to have. Maybe there is a version that is cheaper because it doesn’t have a feature you don’t want anyway. Go for the cheapest but still qualitative product that there is available. You should still like what you are buying.
When you are comparing food prices in grocery stores, always look at the price per unit to be able to compare it to another product in a different quantity.
9. Eat at Home and Bring Your Lunch
Going out to eat is expensive but it is nice to do once in a while. If you want to live more frugally, you should stop doing this or at least reduce your restaurant visits to a minimum.
If going out to eat is your way of treating yourself, then you should allow it only if it fits your budget and maybe look at other ways to save more money.
Cooking your own meals can help you to stay healthy and won’t burn a hole in your wallet. It can also be a pleasant way to spend time with your loved ones and experiment in the kitchen. Who knows, maybe you are the next MasterChef?
Read this article about how to save money on your groceries to save even more.
If coming up with dishes to cook or finding the time to go grocery shopping is difficult for you, you could try a food packet delivery service like Hello Fresh. They deliver all the ingredients and a recipe to follow at your door, easy! Everyone should be able to cook this way! It’s probably more expensive than cooking with store-bought ingredients but will be so much cheaper than dining out.
Making your lunch at home and bringing it to work is also a lot cheaper than when you go out to eat lunch or order some sandwiches. So make your own lunch most of the day or even every day.
10. Water Only
When you really want to up your game on frugal living, start drinking water and water alone! And if possible, switch from bottled to tap water!
I bring my drinking bottle everywhere so I always have some water to sip whenever I am thirsty. I fill it with tap water when I am at home or at work because it tastes fine. There are areas where the water tastes very chalky so it’s not very motivating to drink water all the time that way.
If water is the only thing you drink, you will save so much money every year! Every other beverage you can buy in the supermarket is way more expensive than pure water and way less healthy.
You should drink enough water every day for your general health. If you only drink water, you will probably get there without even trying. Go hydrating yourself! There are plenty of reusable water bottles with marks on them to keep up your water intake during the day.
I’m not saying that you can never drink a soda or beer again, but if you think about all the money you can save, this is a great tip!
11. Grow Your Own or Buy Fresh
I’m talking about fruits and veggies over here. Grow your own fruits and vegetables in your garden or buy them at a farmers’ market.
When shopping at a farmers’ market, you will find the best prices for fruits and vegetables. They are cheaper than in the supermarket and probably more fresh as well. Local farmers will only sell you what the season has to offer in your country and therefore you know that they will be cheaper than the off-season fruits and vegetables in the supermarket. It’s also very nice to support your local community instead of giving the big multinationals your money.
If you have green fingers, you can start planting them greens in your own garden! It can be a nice hobby for people who love spending time outside and have a little farmer inside of them.
Be aware that not everything you plant will give you a lot of profit as there are fruits and vegetables that are cheaper to buy from a farmer. If you calculate the money, time, and effort you put into growing the plants and you don’t like doing it, I think it’s best to buy from the local market. But if you love growing your own vegetables and fruits, go for it! They will taste extra good because you harvested them yourself.
Conclusion
Frugal living tips will help you save more money on the little things, but when you add everything up, you will be happy with your profit!
The first thing is always knowing your financial situation and that’s where a budget will come in handy. The second is to look at where you are able to save more money to set aside. The last thing is to actually do something about it, make a few changes here and there to keep more money to yourself.
Living frugally doesn’t have to be painful or a punishment if you find out which tips are useful to you. You don’t have to stop spending money entirely, you just have to spend your money with more intention and thought.
Frugal living and frugal living tips can help you reach your money goals faster, whatever they are. It’s always a good thing when you are able to save more!