Frugal living, for some, is as natural as breathing. They don’t need frugal living tips. They celebrate every penny saved, revel in every deal and glory in even the smallest money win.
I’m not like that. Being frugal never rocked my boat.
Until recently living a simpler life was not a free choice. It was forced upon me.
Today, I pride myself on being a frugality maverick. What changed?
Simple. I realized that frugal living:
- doesn’t have to limit opportunities;
- doesn’t have to drain the joy and fun out of life; and
- doesn’t mean being embarrassingly cheap.
If you are like me and need, or want, to become frugal but cringe at the thought of cutting your own hair and using one sheet of toilet paper take heart.
There is another path to frugal living; a path that is about not wasting and saying farewell to over-consumption.
This, friends, is mindful frugality. Your money still nourishes your life, but you deliberately side-step the droughts and floods.
Here I share the practical frugal living tips for mindful frugality that eased the pressure on my purse without the sacrifice of fun and joy. I hope these frugal living ideas help you too.
Let’s get started.
What is frugal living?
What does frugal living mean to you?
As a word, ‘frugal’ originates in Middle French and can be traced back to the 1530s. It simply means ‘economical in use’.
Over the centuries, its meaning has changed but not much. For instance, according to Wikipedia, frugality is about
“…being economical with consumable resources like food, time or money and avoiding waste, lavishness, and extravagance.”
For me, frugal living is about:
- Not wasting;
- Getting value for my money; and
- Avoiding over-consumption.
All frugal living tips offered here, are about not wasting and rejecting over-consumption. Within that, the frugality ideas are placed under the main categories of spending we normally incur.
Ultimately, I hope, these frugal living ideas will help you optimize your spending and keep the sizzle of pleasure in your life.
How much less would you expect to spend?
When I first used these frugality tips, we slashed our monthly spending by over a third. Better still, making habits out of them will keep your spending low.
Why become frugal and four little-discussed benefits of frugal living
“He who has a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how’.”
Nietzsche’s words ring as true today as they did nearly a century ago and they apply to a frugal life.
Very few can achieve and maintain, the levels of discipline and dedication frugality demand without the motivation of a big dream, or a higher purpose.
This includes you. Once you are clear about the benefits frugal living will bring to your life, living frugally is easy.
There are many obvious benefits of frugal living.
- You may wish your money would last the month.
- You may wish to save for your dream house; or the designer bag after which you’ve been lusting.
- You may wish to take your loved ones on the adventure of a lifetime.
Some benefits of practising mindful frugality are not as obvious, and within these, your ‘why may reside.
#1. Frugal living puts you in the driver’s seat
Mastering the art of mindful frugality demands knowledge, imagination, discipline, and organization. These are the aspects of your character bringing control to life and will empower you to achieve even the most audacious dreams.
#2. Mindful frugality will help you organize your life
The habitual discipline leading frugal life requires, and develops, spills to other areas of life. Not wasting money, leads to not wasting energy and time.
Coming up with ways to get the best value for your money goes hand in hand with much research and creativity.
#3. Frugal living is good for the environment
Leading a frugal life is leading a life of balance. Balance, in turn, is good for the environment and may help us prolong our existence on Earth.
Not wasting food reduces our personal carbon footprint.
Using less energy means using fewer resources and causing less pollution.
Consuming less means less waste and fewer landfills.
Learning to be frugal is good for our purses and for our planet.
#4. Living frugally is liberating
I used to worry about my possessions, my money, and my routines all the time. Nothing was ever right.
When I travelled I either took too much or left behind things I absolutely needed.
Even when I had money for today, tomorrow and the next five years, I worried that I won’t have enough money when I’m 84.
My morning routine was sacred and wouldn’t even think of leaving the house/hotel without completing it.
I worried until martial arts training camp in Korea.
For two weeks I slept on the floor, shared a room and facilities with six other women, started training ten minutes after waking up and lived in tracksuits, t-shirts and my do-bohk (this is the clothes in which you train).
Was it hard?
You bet. My grumbling, for the first two days, could be heard over the border in North Korea. After that, all fell in place.
Living with little made me realize I need little.
Possessions, money, and routines no longer worry me. Living on very little is something I can do.
How to live frugally, feel empowered and love your life: frugal living ideas for a less wasteful life
You are serious about giving frugal living a try.
It is time to try my tested frugal living tips. A reminder that these are organized according to whether they refer to:
- cutting waste; or
- minimizing over-consumption.
Further, all frugal living tips are organized according to the area of spending/life.
This allows you to pick and choose the frugality tips that are relevant to your life and the ones you intend to implement immediately.
There is no point waiting once you’ve decided to take control of your spending.
Don’t fear: the frugality tips shared here won’t make you cheap and boring. Some may require you to test your limits – so much worth it for the empowerment, this brings in its wake.
Frugal living ideas to reduce waste
Back when we were so deep in debt that even breathing was hard, I mistakenly believed we spent only what is necessary. We certainly didn’t live in opulence and ostentatiousness.
Then I had a good look at the numbers. Turns out, we were over-spending and nearly all of it was from waste.
There were two areas where the waste was nothing if not shameful: food and insurance.
Here is how to stop being wasteful in key areas of your life and learn to lead a more frugal lifestyle.
Frugal tips to stop wasting food
You can buy non-branded goods, shop at farms and eat more vegetables – this is all sound and will help you slash your spending on food.
My bet is still on up to 40% of the food you buy ending in the rubbish bin – a safe bet given a third of the food produced for human consumption in the world is wasted (it is also safe to assume that this is wasted in the ‘developed’ world).
Hence, the frugal tips here are not about saving on food by changing your choices; these are about eliminating food waste. Compromising on the quality of food is not something I’d encourage anybody to do.
We used the frugality tips below and minimized food waste. How much did we save? We slashed our food budget by nearly half.
#1. Make a weekly menu. You may belong to the rare breed of people who can look at a pile of ingredients and come up with a tasty meal. Most of us are not like that – faced with a pile of ingredients we order a take-out and throw away the food we have. If you are like that, you need a weekly menu – start from the meal and deconstruct the ingredients.
#2. Buy (only) what you need for the meals on your weekly menu. You deconstructed the meals, right? Now make a shopping list and stick to it. (Yes, I know you’d look like your granny in the supermarket, but this is better than throwing away half the money you spend.) Okay, you can buy a couple of treats.
#3. Create a store cupboard. Store cupboards are wonderful for saving money and increasing security. Mine contains pulses, pasta, rice, cereal, tomato cans, and selected sauces; generally, things that last.
#4. Learn how to use ‘by-products’. Often recipes ask you to use only part of an ingredient. For example, there are many meals that use only egg yolk. Don’t throw away what is left. Google the ingredient and you’ll find many ways to use it.
#5. Learn to love leftovers. Never been able to understand people who can’t eat leftovers. I cook more on purpose. The leftovers from our evening meal make a great lunch for the next day (and saves me paying for lunch). Things like rice are a bit more problematic; though rice left from dinner makes great rice pudding for the next day.
#6. Use your freezer. Batch-cook and freeze meals – this saves money and time.
#7. Cook (and freeze) soups. You’d be surprised how far £5 of vegetables go when you cook soups. You can also use any slightly tired vegetables in your fridge to make a tasty and healthy soup.
