If your goal is to save more money—be it for your emergency fund, a family vacation, a down payment on your first home, or because you’re fleeing the nest to live on your own for the first time—then these frugal living tips are for you.
Hi, I’m Charles, I am a financial writer at lovejunktion and I write about personal finance that actually fits into your real life. No complicated jargon, just clear advice you can use.
In this article, you’ll learn exactly how to live frugally to save a ton of money. Ready? Let’s begin.
What is Frugal Living?
Now many people cringe or laugh when they hear the word ‘frugal,’ thinking it’s about being miserable and cheap.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Frugality is not about dropping every possible purchase you can in order to save as much money as possible.
Rather, frugal living is about avoiding wasteful and extravagant spending so you can give your hard-earned money an assignment that’s purposeful and intentional.
So what does it mean to be frugal? Well, it means prioritizing what’s most important to you and cutting back on those things that aren’t.
Now I already know what you’re thinking. And sure, cutting back and not buying your favorite iced coffee, mocha latte thing, or going out to eat occasionally will help save money, but doing those things alone will not make a big impact on your finances.
So before you question whether or not this lifestyle change is worth it, I want to remind you that this is not meant to be a sprint, but a marathon. Meaning it’s going to take more work and effort on your part to adjust your habits and step outside of your comfort zone.
Now thankfully there are a ton of creative ways to live frugally, and in this conversation, I plan to share with you some of the best frugality tips to incorporate into your life so you can save money at a rate that actually moves the needle.
So if you’re ready to beef up your emergency fund, pay off debt, or save for those things you dream about, then sit tight, lean in, and let’s begin.
The Frugal Living Tips
1. Cook in Bulk
Food is generally one of people’s biggest expenses, and it’s one of the best strategies that’s going to save you a lot of money.
The frugal living tips i have here is, cooking in bulk. And If you don’t have a calendar planning out your meals, you’re probably going to waste a lot of food.
You won’t know what to buy at the store, and you’ll spend a lot of time and money cooking your meals every other day.
Cooking once or three times a week that’ll reach you food for the entire week, is so much easier. I always cook in batches, freeze meals, and then thaw them later. It saves so much time and money.
2. Use Tools To Your Advantage
I want to share a few tools that I have been using for a while and one of them is Gas Buddy. If you don’t know what this is, it helps you finds the cheapest gas.
You can find gas that’s literally like 50 cents or a dollar cheaper than other places by using this app and the good part is that it’s totally free.
I’ve also used a couple of other tools for shopping online that help you save money. These are just small things, but they do add up over time.
You can use things like Honey or Capital One Shopping so that every time you buy something online, they search for discount codes.
I’ve saved multiple hundreds of dollars from doing that, which is really cool, and it takes almost zero effort.
Join Buy Nothing Groups
This is really cool. There are some locally; they’re not everywhere, but pretty much you can join these groups where neighbors and people who live in the same city can share things. You don’t have to buy something.
If you have a service that you’re good at, you can trade that with somebody else who has a different service. You can donate stuff to people you actually know.
You can let people borrow things. It’s a really cool way to save a lot of money and actually have a good impact on the environment. You build relationships; it’s a really cool idea.
Repair Instead of Replace
This is something that seems really common and kind of obvious, but very few people do this. That’s actually using your clothes till they’re totally worn out, using your phone till it actually doesn’t work anymore, using your laptop till it doesn’t work anymore, using your car.
So many things people just buy because they want to upgrade; they want something newer. But if your stuff is still working, let it work. It actually saves a lot of money.
Negotiate Your Bills
Over the years, I was able to save over a couple thousands on my car insurance simply by switching to another company.
Whenever it was time to renew and they had upped the price, I called around a bunch of different companies and was able to save thousands of dollars every year simply by taking an hour or two to switch.
Another switch you can make is going to a different phone plan. I know a lot of people spend way too much money on their phone plans.
I have started using a provider that’s $20 a month for unlimited everything. I’ve been using them for a couple of months; I’ve noticed no difference and just saved a ton of money.
Set Up Automatic Savings
If you don’t do this, you’re kind of missing out. This is just taking a certain amount out of your paycheck every single month and putting it into your future.
This is paying yourself first; it’s buying freedom. So, whether it’s a certain dollar amount or a percentage of your paycheck, automatically put that into a high-interest savings account so it can start earning money, or put it into an investment account.
Whatever your strategy is, whatever stage you’re at, if you’re not doing that automatically, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Have Financial Goals
If you don’t have financial goals, you’re guaranteed not to hit them. This is something that has really shifted a lot of things for me.
One of the biggest impacts on my life was having a very strong “why.” Things get hard; you’re tempted. There are a lot of strong reasons why we want to spend money or why we can’t save. If you don’t have a good reason behind all that, you’ll struggle.
My reason behind all the sacrifices was being able to buy myself freedom and be able to travel—all things I’ve been able to do because of those little moment of sacrifice.
I know I wouldn’t have gotten there if I didn’t have it clearly in my mind. Having that clearly imprinted was super powerful for me.
Change Grocery Stores
Changing grocery stores can save you an insane amount of money. The exact same products at two different stores five minutes apart can be 30 to 50% more expensive at one store. I look at prices of different things, compare them, and only go for the best option.
Also, if you ever shop hungry, that is the biggest waste of money ever. You should never do that. Name brands are mostly a complete scam.
A lot of the time, things are from the exact same place; they just put different labels on them. I did a taste test of the cheapest sauce at a store and the most expensive sauce. I could taste a slight difference, but not a five-times-the-price difference.
Save Money on Drinking
You can save money on drinking by doing two things. First, always have a water bottle with you. I never buy water anymore; we just bring it with me. It’s healthier and saves an insane amount of money over your life.
Secondly, whenever I go out to dinner, I never really buy a drink because that’s the highest margin item. Whether it’s coffee, soda, or a mixed drink, you’re spending way too much money for something that’s generally bad for you.
Embrace Minimalism
When you embrace minimalism, you don’t want to buy more stuff to make you happy. You find certain things that work well for you, and then you just don’t buy anything for months or years. It can save a lot of money.
This leads to a few rules. One is the 7-day, 30-day, or 90-day rule. I don’t buy anything unless I’ve had it written down or in a cart for at least that long. Doing that allows me to buy way less stuff because I always forget about it.
The second is doing no-buy days, weeks, months, or even years. This is really powerful if you have spending habits.
Taking a month where you don’t buy anything besides absolute essentials can cure a ton of your habits. I use this at least once a year as a really good reset.
The Big Picture
It’s important to look at your life and ask if all the stuff you’re spending money on is aligned with how you want to live.
Do you want to spend your entire life working for money? Having that mindset will make a ton of these decisions for you.
It’s also important to realize that at a certain point, you cannot save any more money. If you’re already doing all these tips, it might be more efficient to focus on learning high-value skills to earn more money.
There’s no cap on how much you can earn, but there is a cap on how much you can save.
Track Your Money & Avoid Fees
If you’re not tracking your money, you’re doing yourself a disservice. If you don’t know where your money is going, it’s really hard to control it.
Americans waste an insane amount of money on bank fees, ATM fees, and late fees. If you’re not paying attention, you won’t even know about them. Tracking everything helps you see where to cut, like unused subscriptions.
Stay Healthy
Staying healthy can save you a lot of money. I take good care of myself, I avoid sugar, am very active, and go to the gym consistently.
Doing that can save you a lot of money, especially in the long run. You have a lot of control over your health through exercise and diet.
Consider a Smaller Home / House Hacking
I do something called house hacking, where I live in one unit and rent out the other. That pays for a lot of the mortgage, taxes, and insurance.
For three or four years, I literally didn’t pay for my housing at all. Now, I pay very little. Controlling your biggest expense can make a massive impact on your finances.
If you have a mortgage, try paying it twice a month. This changes how much goes towards the principal. Over a 30-year loan, you could save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Invest in Quality & Mindful Spending
As a frugal person, I thought cheaper was always better, but that burned me. I bought cheap jackets that fell apart and cheap appliances that didn’t work well.
Now, I practice mindful spending. I think: is this something I’m going to use for a long time? Does it add value to my life? Sometimes, spending more on a high-quality item you use often is actually cheaper per use than buying something cheap that breaks or you never use.
Change Your Dinner Strategy
Instead of always going out to dinner with friends, we make really good stuff at home. We have potato dinners where everybody gets a baked potato with toppings; it’s really cheap and tastes amazing.
Inviting people over can save money compared to going out, and you can have higher quality food.
DIY
You can do a lot of stuff yourself. With basic plumbing needs or changing a toilet, you can save yourself the $150 or $300 service call. Just look at YouTube; you can fix a lot of problems yourself.
Change your own oil, fix basic things around your house. It saves an insane amount of money. Even if you’re not handy, most stuff is not super complicated.
Make your own coffee at home. It tastes so much better when you can buy really nice coffee, and it’s so much cheaper and faster.
You can buy a $20 pour-over and really nice coffee and save time and money. For me, it tastes way better at home, and I enjoy it.
Conclusion
I hope I shared something with you that you found valuable and if so please save the pin below and let me know which section of this conversation helped you the most. Keep growing, keep learning and always stay true to you.