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Do you want to acquire the art of frugal living?
Perhaps you’re someone that spends every extra penny you receive, and now, you decided that it’s high time for you to begin saving up. Don’t worry; you’re in the perfect place.
In this article, I’ll be discussing 15 of the best frugal habits you can acquire to save huge amounts.
If this catches your interest, continue reading, and you are guaranteed to save more in the upcoming months.
What Does Frugal Living Really Mean?
How would you describe frugal living? Do you classify as “cheap”? No, not at all.
Frugal living and living as a cheapskate are two separate and distinct lifestyles. Don’t confuse frugal living with cheap as these possess two very different definitions.
Someone can be classified as cheap if they visit the store to purchase the least pricey product without considering its quality.
At the same time, frugal refers to determining your desires and spend less money while also considering your desires.
Frugal living can also be defined by making sacrifices in one incidence to save more for another.
1. Set A Grocery Budget
One of the best ways to save as much as possible is by setting up a grocery budget.
This is essential if you don’t want to overspend while grocery shopping. For example, set a weekly budget of $100. You must follow this budget no matter what.
If possible, even try to save more from this budget. But remember, you cannot exceed this set budget. This will motivate you to save up.
Gather your savings in a jar, and when you have ample, feel free to please yourself with a small gift for your efforts.
Therefore, don’t wait and start working on your grocery budget right away.
2. Lower Those Electricity Expenses
You can never underestimate the savings you can squeeze out from electricity bills.
Replace your light bulbs with LED lamps, use smart power strips, get energy-efficient fans, reduce your water heating expenses.
There is so much you can do. Most people begin their frugal living by lowering their electricity bill as it is the simplest way to save more.
3. Consume Less Bottled Water
Do you need to drink bottled water? Not really. If you reside in a country with excellent water quality, do not hesitate to throw bottled water out of your expenses.
Make do with what you’re already paying for.
Even if you aren’t receiving high-quality water, no need to worry, use those extra bucks to buy yourself a cost-efficient water filter.
Even though this may not seem like the cheaper alternative, it’ll prove to be in the long run.
Another plus point of doing this is that your plastic dump is generally lowered by refraining from plastic water bottles.
4. Go with a Weekly Meal Plan
As a general rule, frugal people usually prefer planning their meals for the upcoming weak in advance.
When you’re extremely hungry, you don’t have the ability to take your time and think about what you’ll be eating. Instead, you just order the first thing you find.
This can be very unhealthy for your budget.
Planning in advance would allow you to consider cheaper food and include them on your list. Plus, you’ll always have food with you in all circumstances.
You won’t have to starve anytime. I definitely consider that as a win-win.
5. Prepare Lunch the Night Before
Frugal people always prefer doing things in advance.
This leads to many beneficial results. Here, I’d like to use myself as an example. I plan all three meals of the day a night before.
Often, I even prepare the food to unburden myself. If you’re afraid of the food getting bad, just freeze it for the night. It’s as simple as that.
You would be escaping any unfortunate mishaps during lunch.
Just think about it, you get up early to prepare food, and you realized you’re out of meat or veggies.
What would you do now? Probably rush to the supermarket and grab something to eat, right? Think about how much this adds to your expenses.
6. Practice Frugal Living Within Your Means
What I mean by “Living Within Your Means” is learning to survive on what you have.
If you don’t have money, don’t put it on credit. Instead, consider thinning your expenses. I can’t emphasize this enough.
Make do with what you have, and if you don’t have it, make do without.
This is a practice widely used by frugal people. If they were in a tough situation, they never considered expanding their budget.
If you wish to follow their footsteps, develop a budget, and be strict with it. No compromises should be acknowledged.
7. Always Follow a Written Budget
Having a written budget eases your mind a lot! Usually, people don’t have any specific budget in mind.
It’s only after most purchasers that they realized they’d exceeded their budget. However, it’s always too late. They’ve already spent those extra bucks that they could’ve saved up.
Without a written budget, it’s incredibly challenging to know exactly how much you are comfortable with spending.
While writing down your budget, make sure you produce some savings from this budget. Don’t spend all you have.
Keep saving up and then surprise yourself with savings amount at the end of the month.
8. Frugal People Think Long-Term When It is About Their Overall Finances
This is one of the most significant factors that differentiate frugal people from ordinary people. Frugal people focus significantly on the future.
They are more concerned about how much savings they’d have, like 10 or 20 years later. Generally, this is thought of as a pretty useful strategy.
People who care about the future are more likely to become successful. Alright, let’s not get side-tracked.
My point here is that the frugal lifestyle focuses prominently on the future. Spend less today to be able to spend more tomorrow.
9. Frugal People Never Stop Learning
The central part of frugal living is personal development.
We, as humans, are always learning and evolving. Listen to audiobooks, read books, and take online lessons to keep expanding your mental capacity.
This will also develop you as a frugal individual. To accomplish this, try Udemy.
Udemy is the best online learning app. It comprises of over 100,000 video courses on a number of topics.
Personally, I recommend it if you’re looking for some guidance.
10. Shop Car And Homeowners’ Insurance At Least Annually
Vehicle insurance can really boost your expenses.
You need to have proper insurance if you wish to accomplish your financial goals. Vehicle insurance can be a complicated process, too, if you don’t do it correctly.
To ease your worries, I introduce to you the best car and home insurance company out there. Gabi will take your pain away with its efficient car insurance services.
11. Be Frugal While Spending Emotionally
Spending emotionally can severely affect your budget.
You need to pay extra attention to where you decide to spend your money. Don’t let emotions overwhelm you.
People tend to care less about other factors when emotions get the best of them.
Even if you’re a really calm individual, you won’t be able to control yourself during such circumstances.
Try to avoid making regretful expenses at such time. Don’t come close to that credit card, hide your cash, and do whatever you can to refrain from spending.
12. Save Gift Cards
Nowadays, everyone owns gift cards.
However, few realize the real benefits of having numerous gift cards. Gift cards provide you with an extra budget.
Whenever you shop from stores, use gift cards instead of credit or cash.
Whenever you receive a gift card, don’t waste it. Look at those as an opportunity to excel in one area of your budget.
Don’t use them for additional products that you have no use for, instead save up these gift cards for a time when you actually need them.
13. Cancel Your Gym Membership
Have you ever realized how much your gym expenses affect your budget?
You don’t even visit the gym every single day. You should consider canceling your gym membership to save more.
A better option would be to purchase a few weights and learn how to exercise at your home’s comfort.
Buy a mini exercise bike, and you could exercise while watching the television.
Although this may feel more expensive than a gym membership, it’s just a one-time investment.
You don’t have to buy new tools every month. Just buy it once and make do with it for several years.
14. Make Coffee At Home
Frugal living demands you to drop certain habits that you may not want to drop. For example, that habit of having Starbucks every single morning.
Do you really need to be spending so much on coffee?
What you could be doing instead is buying a coffee maker and make your coffee at home.
It’s quite easy to make coffee at home. You won’t have to drive to the nearest coffee shop every single day. Now that you think about it, it’s a win-win, isn’t it?
Takeaway
If you wish to master the art of frugal living, you must make a few sacrifices.
But don’t worry, these sacrifices will soon be paying off. You’ll soon witness a prominent lift on your savings. Why wait then? The sooner you start, the more you would be saving up.
Follow these 15 tips to save more, and you’ll be practicing frugal living in no time.
I hope you found this article useful. Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
