“Being frugal does not mean being cheap! It means being economical and avoiding waste.”
~ Catherine Pulsifer
Frugality is the quality of being frugal, sparing, thrifty, prudent, or economical in the consumption of consumable resources such as food, time, or money, and avoiding waste, lavishness, or extravagance.
Frugal living is the act of being very intentional with your spending and it is very important in the achievement of your financial goals.
Essentially, living frugally is also knowing how to live simply and cheaply. And there are various meanings you can give to frugal living.
You can choose to be financially frugal; others can choose to be socially frugal, what really matters is that you are conscious of the cheapest ways to live. In this article, we will be looking at the best frugal living tips, in other words, frugal living tips with a big impact.
Before we dive in, let’s look at the importance of living a frugal life:
- It gives you an overall financial contentment
- It helps you maintain a disciplined lifestyle in your spending.
- It places on you a responsibility to save and invest more.
- A frugal lifestyle is having less financial stress
- It helps you live within your means and manage financial storms even when they come.
- It keeps you prepared for emergencies.
Here are some of the best frugal living tips that would help save money fast and reach your financial goals. Grab a bar of chocolate and enjoy the ride…
1. Stick To A Budget
First on the list of frugal living tips is the need to stick to a budget. Budgeting is one of the best frugal living tips to save money fast because it allows you to create a spending plan for your money, thus ensuring that you always have money for the things you need and you are hardly caught unawares by emergencies.
Following a budget will keep you out of debt and makes it easier for you to track your expenses. While creating your budget, you must make sure that your income minus your expenses will be zero.
Your expenses must not be more than your income which is why before your income, you must have a feasible budget that would contain your expenses, how much you plan to save and invest, and things you need to cut down spending on.
Creating a budget and sticking to it is an important frugal living tip on how to save money fast.
2. Shop With A List
This is another important frugal living tip. Most times, you come back from shopping with a whole lot of things that you do not need and could have avoided buying.
Having a shopping list lets you prioritize your spending on what you truly need at that moment. When you have a shopping list, you are more focused and restricted to the area of things you want to buy, and getting lured by fancy items, limited stock is less likely to happen.
Making a shopping list also gives you a sense of accomplishment of being able to stay disciplined and not buy unnecessary things.
If you have not started shopping with a list before, start now because this frugal living tip is an effective way of cutting down on your spending and it makes it easier to be able to save.
3. Avoid Impulse Buying
Impulse buying is an unplanned decision to buy a product or service after feeling a sudden urge to possess it. Any decision that is taken on impulse, most times do not end well.
Impulse buying hurts your wallet and can make you incur debt. Impulse buying is an enemy of frugality and the best way to avoid it is to prevent the urge from going shopping except there is a need to and you have a shopping list to follow.
When you are at the mall, stick to your shopping list and do not spend too much time so you don’t get tempted to make an impulse purchase. Stay away from online retail sites too.
Another way to curb impulse buying is to monitor your urges. You can keep a little piece of paper and record every time you get an urge to make an impulse purchase.
This would keep you more aware and by being conscious of the urge, you can begin to get the urges under control.
4. Track Your Expenses
Having a frugal lifestyle is avoiding unnecessary expenses and like I’ve stated under the point of impulse buying, one way to control urges is to be conscious that you have that urge, that is, keeping track of your urges.
An effective way to frugal living and saving money fast is to track your expenses. If possible, record your daily expenses and watch how you spend so you don’t end up overspending in any area.
Make it a habit to check your account statements to identify what you have been spending. Carefully go through your account statements and see things that you spent on that was not actually needed.
For example, a recurring subscription. Be ready to make adjustments where necessary as you track your expenses. When you monitor your expenses, you find out what has been costing you and what has not.
You know if your income matched up with your expenses or it was higher. Tracking your expenses can give you an accurate picture of where your money is going and where you need to make necessary adjustments.
It also reveals spending issues because if you do not know how you have been spending your money, you would not recognize negative spending behaviors that you can easily change to maintain a frugal lifestyle.
5. Master The 30-Day Rule
The 30-day rule tells you to take the money you were going to spend on an impulse purchase and store it in a savings account for 30 days.
Write down the information about the goods or services you planned to purchase and if after 30 days you still want to purchase the item then you can go ahead.
But there is a very high possibility that you would realize that you did not need whatever it was that you wanted to purchase. This is another practical way of saving money fast.
I remember some time ago I was complaining about my financial state but even in that situation, I saw this very beautiful dress online and the next thing I remember was inputting my account details for the payment for the dress.
Of course, I regretted it later and I still do because if I had employed the 30-day rule idea at that point before I made that impulse purchase, the money would have gone to something more important.
Although I still think the dress is very beautiful and sometimes, I console myself with that fact but the harsh truth is I made an impulse purchase when I could’ve saved the money.
6. Use Cash To Pay Your Bills
Paying in cash will help you save money by reducing the chances of you making an impulse purchase unlike when you are using a credit card.
Also, unlike credit cards, there are no transaction fees while you are using cash. When you pay with cash you have budgeted for purchases, it is easier to track how you are spending your money and you know how much is going out from time to time.
Multiple studies have shown that people will spend more when using a credit card compared to cash. A study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that diners tipped an average of 4.29% more when using a credit card.
The best frugal way to save money fast in this instance is to only carry enough cash that helps you stick to your budget. This makes it easier to resist temptations. Cash generally helps you control your spending and this would make you save more.
7. Use Credit Cards Wisely
Keeping your card “out of sight and out of mind” might help you reduce temptation while you’re out. If you have the habit of overspending when you are out with your credit card, hide them in safe places in your home.
It is so easy to slide your cards out of your wallets and make purchases you didn’t plan on. If you are guilty of this, don’t carry your credit cards around except when needed. It would help you save more money.
8. Separate Needs From Wants
Frugal living is a disciplined lifestyle that avoids waste and separating your needs from your wants is key. If you are confused about whether an item is a need or a want, do without it for some time, maybe a month or two.
If after that time, you truly cannot live with that item, then it may be a need. Prioritizing the items on your budget is important because it helps you maintain a disciplined way of saving and spending your money.
You cannot go ahead and purchase luxurious items at the expense of your necessities such as food and shelter. To separate your needs from your wants, decide what it is that you truly need, that is, what adds value to your life.
Also, trade away some of your wants for something better. In separating your needs from your wants, you must ensure you are honest with yourself because some things might seem like a need but it is actually something you can do without.
For example, the beautiful dress I purchased was clothing and clothing is an essential need but at that time, it was not necessary and I could have done without it.
9. Avoid Stress Spending
Stress spending is making an impulse purchase as a direct result of being anxious or stressed. Avoiding stress spending is an effective frugal living tip to save money faster because it helps you stay disciplined by avoiding impulse purchases.
After you must have purchased something out of anxiety or your emotions, you eventually find out that you did not need to make the purchase in the first place and the thing about stress spending is after making the impulse purchase, you only feel better for a while.
The anxiety or whatever emotion you were feeling before the purchase comes back eventually. It is better you save money and find a healthy way to handle your emotion.
Here are some practical steps to take to curb your stress spending;
- Identify what triggers you to stress spend. The more conscious you are about your problems, the easier it is to tackle them.
- Stick to your budget
- Use the 30-day rule
- Try creating a means of making smaller purchases. You can get in your feelings sometimes and it’s okay to treat yourself so far it still helps you maintain your financial goals and does not put you in debt.
- Have a friend who can keep you accountable to your financial goals and keep you in check when you get tempted to stress-spend.
10. Create A Savings Plan
This is a very essential frugal living tip. A savings plan is a strategic process that allows you to make sustainable and measurable progress towards what you want.
The importance of savings is that it allows you to achieve greater financial feats and gives you foresight into your future so that you are not taken off balance by an emergency.
Creating a savings plan will help you control your spending and make you more disciplined.
Here are some strategies to help you create your own savings plan;
- Include savings as a fixed item in your budget. When you have set aside a particular percentage as your savings, you are less likely to spend it.
- Designate a certain type of income for your savings. For example, a tax refund, annual bonuses, etc.
- Use an automatic savings method. There are a lot of savings applications that aid the set-up of an automatic transfer of a designated amount at your chosen time to your savings account.
- Have a plan for your savings. Don’t just save to spend later or simply because you think it’s good to. It is more motivating when you target your goals at things like a vacation, shopping, your dream car or house, or even an investment plan.
- Create an emergency fund that must be used only for emergencies and you return it after you get back on your feet.
FOR YOU
Hey there! Thank you for reading this article on how to live cheaply. If you are new to this blog, I write content on self-development and lifestyle in general. Feel free to drop a comment in the comment section as I would be more than willing to read them and interact with you!
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I think living frugally is something to aspire to be – I really struggle with this in certain areas, anything for my daughter and books. I am quite happy to repair and to spend time searching for the best deals for the things we need to buy.
The article is very helpful.its a great reminderof some of the practice I employed to save years ago.i forgot about it when expenses went up.i will try and return to them.. Thanks
especially like #4. I never pay retail for anything. I love eBay, thrift shops, yard sales, Craig’s List, etc. I also use coupon codes when I shop online.