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Are you looking for frugal living tips so that you can start saving more money?
Frugality and practicing frugal living is a lifestyle many have implemented to stop living paycheck to paycheck and even used to start building wealth.
Many wealthy people are often frugal, even billionaires like Warren Buffet.
Some people are naturally frugal while others learned from their parents or their upbringing.
However, there are plenty of us who grew up learning bad spending habits.
We may not even know what it means to be frugal or the
Frugal Definition: What does frugal living mean?
Frugal living is all about how you choose to spend money.
We all have to navigate life and choose how we do things.
A lot of what we do in life may involve spending money to do it.
If you have to buy a car, how do you decide how to buy it?
A frugal person is likely to look for the lowest-cost vehicle that has all of the features needed.
Frugal living is focused on spending the least amount of money possible to accomplish your goals.
Why Should You Consider Frugal Living?
Frugal living is important if you’re trying to build wealth.
While a high-paying job can always lead to riches, it doesn’t necessarily lead to wealth.
There are plenty of people who have earned a lot of money but spent it all.
If you want to build sustainable wealth that creates supplemental income, you must spend less than you earn.
Just like a high-paying job can supercharge your path to wealth, frugal living can do the same.
Frugal living allows you save more of your money. You can invest this money and eventually turn it into passive income.
When you’re able to live a low-cost lifestyle, it simply gives you more options and opportunities for the money you earn.
For example, it’s a much more difficult decision to quit your job and start a business when you have a car loan and credit card balances, live in an expensive rental, and you’re accustomed to a luxury lifestyle.
Frugal Living Tips
Figure Out Where You Spend the Most Money and Create a Budget
If you want to start living frugally, you have know where you are spending money.
Often one of the biggest reasons why we don’t have more money is because we don’t know how much we’re spending.
It can be eye opening when you see how much you’re spending in various categories.
For us, it’s always eating out and entertainment.
You don’t realize how many times you’ve gone for coffee in the last few months until you’re staring at all of the coffee shop transactions.
It’s a good idea to start by categorizing all of your expenses by essential and nonessential. You can learn how to do that here.
Once you know that, you can focus on those nonessential expenses and figure out where you are spending all of your money.
After you know where you’re spending money, it’s time to create spending goals using a budget.
A budget is great for figuring out how much money you earn over a period of time (we use a quarterly budget) and allocating each dollar to different categories.
When you know how much you spend on essential expenses, you also know how much you have for save for investing and spend on nonessential expenses.
If you don’t have a budget yet, what the hell are you waiting for?? Click here to learn how to start budgeting the right way (not the mommy blogger way).
Spend Less Money with Cashback Rewards
Of the money that you do spend, you should try to receive cash back rewards so that you spend less money.
The traditional form of cashback rewards is from credit cards which offer various forms of cashback
There are three most common rewards: actual
A cashback credit card usually pays a percentage of the purchase in the form of money into your account.
So, if the credit card is 1% cashback, you receive $1 for every $100 purchased with the card.
Points and miles are similar to this although they do not usually offer money paid out.
Instead, you can redeem miles and points for all kinds of stuff like flights, hotels, and even products.
A points or miles card is a great option if you travel a few times each year.
With the internet and smartphones, now there are also companies that offer cash back and other rewards when you make purchases.
Rakuten Ebates is one of the most popular websites and apps where you can receive cash back when you make purchases.
Here are few other apps and websites for earning cash back and rewards:
- Bumped | Receive stock and ETF investments for loyalty purchases.
- Dosh | Earn cashback in-store and online for specific purchases.
- MyPoints | Receive points redeemable for gift cards when you make specific purchases.
- Swagbucks | Receive points redeemable for gift cards when you make specific purchases.
- Drop | Receive points redeemable for gift cards when you make specific purchases.
- Shopkick | Receive points redeemable for gift cards when you make specific purchases.
There are also apps that will reward you for specific purchases when you take a photo of your receipt.
Ibotta is one of the most popular apps that rewards you for taking photos of your receipts. Checkout 51 is also another option.
The best part about using rewards cards and apps is that often times you receive cashback or points from multiple places.
Use Your Loyalty to Receive Discounts
Is your email inbox full of coupons and discounts?
Are you always being asked to sign up for a rewards program when you shop?
These are great ways to use your loyalty to receive discounts.
Look at where you shop and spend the most money.
Humans are creatures of habit so it’s likely that you frequent the same places when you shop.
Sign up for loyalty programs so that the next time you need something you’ll have a coupon or receive rewards for your purchase.
However, you have to be very conscious of your spending.
Coupons and loyalty programs are a form of marketing and advertising.
You do have to be careful to not let coupons and discounts urge you into spending when you really didn’t need to buy something.
Consider DIY before Your Buy
Before you pay someone else to do something for you, consider doing it yourself to save money.
With the vast amounts of video tutorials online, it is very easy to fix your problems yourself.
This can save you a lot of money because the most expensive part of someone helping you is the person who is actually helping you.
Compare how much it will cost to have something done versus doing it yourself.
You also want to consider your time before you DIY.
Put a value on your time and include that in both of the costs.
You probably don’t want to DIY if it’s going to take 5 times longer to do it yourself.
Still, even having someone else do something for you usually involves your time.
For example, we had a headlight go out on our car.
Instead of taking it in
It took us about an hour with the help of a YouTube video.
We estimate that it would have taken about the same time, driving the car to the mechanic, waiting and then driving home.
It saved us about $50.
There is one last benefit that is hard to measure but you should consider:
Learning something new.
The ability to learn and simply learning how to do different types of things will help you in other areas of life.
Cut Out What You Don’t Actually Use
Have you ever heard people say that there are 300 channels on their cable package and but they only watch 5 channels?
This used to be very common but is a little outdated now that many young people only stream shows and
Still, this could be applied to streaming too.
There are now all kinds of streaming services and ones being added every year.
Are you using all of your streaming subscriptions?
If not, stop paying for them.
You shouldn’t be paying for anything that you don’t actually use.
These subscriptions are easy to forget about because the subscription fee is charged automatically.
Look at all your expenses and ask yourself: Am I really using this enough for how much I’m paying?
Find Inexpensive Hobbies or Inexpensive Alternatives to Your Hobbies
What do you like to do in your free time? How much do you pay to do it?
Are there alternatives that are cheaper?
If you workout as a hobby, why not find the most inexpensive way to do it.
Instead of buying a peloton and paying for a monthly subscription, buy a bike and go outside.
If you like to go and get drinks with your friends, why not offer to host at your home every other time.
Try to find hobbies that are inexpensive or alternatives to the activities that you like to do.
There are even apps like Sweatcoin and Achievement that will pay you for walking and running.
You may have some hobbies that there is just no way of reducing your spending, but if you’re doing it in other areas you still be saving money.
Buy Quality Now to Spend Less Later
Often, people will mistake frugal with cheap.
This is a problem because cheap can actually lead you to spending more money in the long run.
Is it better to buy 3 shirts that last 4 months for $7 each or 1 shirt that lasts 1 year for $20?
You only save $1 in the example above but it’s good for showing that you may be actually spending more money even though something appears cheaper.
We’ve been tricked many times into buying something that looked like a great deal but was actually just low-quality.
Remember, frugal living is all about spending less money to accomplish your goals. Not about buying the cheapest stuff.
Usually, quality costs more on a price versus price basis. But, that doesn’t mean that quality costs more on a value versus value basis.
If two cars are each expected to last 20 years with the same repair and maintenance costs, you buy the less expensive car.
But, if one car costs less but will only last 15 years and will require more repair costs, the better quality car is likely to be
Purchase quality products and services to save money in the long-run.
Final Thoughts on Frugal Living Tips
Frugal living doesn’t happen over night.
It will take time for you to change how you think about spending your money.
The best thing you can do is be aware of these frugal living tips when you have to fix a problem or do something.
Ask yourself:
- Is there a coupon or discount I can use?
- Could I fix the problem or do this activity myself?
- Is there an alternative that is cheaper?
- Is the higher quality version a better value?
This should help you to make a more conscious decision when you are spending your money.
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