Five Ways to Live a Frugal Life
If you’ve recently found yourself having to keep one eye on your bank balance, nervously awaiting payday at the end of the month, then perhaps you need to cut down on your expenditures? The simple truth is your outgoings are probably more than your incomings and you should adopt a more frugal lifestyle.
In this post, we’ve detailed five ways to live a frugal life that can help you save yourself. Be sure to read on to find out these five ways to live a frugal life and discover how you can avoid your monetary woes and worries in the future!
1) Monitor Your Utilities
Making a few little changes in your house or flat can help to bring your quarterly bills for gas, electric and water down. Switch to energy saving bulbs and make sure you (and any other family members) turn off all electronic devices properly. Avoid taking baths – treat yourself to one a week at most. Spend no longer than 10 minutes in the shower. Also when it’s cold, don’t whack the heating on full, keep it low and layer up with a jumper instead.
2) Work Out a Diet Plan
Shop for groceries just once a week and set yourself a strict diet plan so you don’t a) overeat and b) end up spending more by visiting the supermarkets several times a week. As an added benefit you’ll be living healthier at the same time.
3) Curb your social enthusiasm
In a similar vein to the above point, you need to limit the amount of time you spend going out and socialising, as regular nights out or cinema trips can definitely start to add up financially. Again, treat yourself to something on the weekend, or alternatively look for free events or activities to participate in nearby.
4) Driving costs down
If you rely on your car for work or general transport, then you need to pay special attention to this one. By driving in a more reserved and careful way you increase the mpg and help prolong the lifespan of your vehicle. Both of these work towards money savings in the long run. For further information about bring driving costs down, there’s lots of useful advice here in this post.
5) Shop second hand
Instead of hitting the high-street stores, look for the second hand boutiques, thrift stores, and charity shops to grab yourself a bargain. You can also do this for other things like furniture and household items.
Five Ways to Live a Frugal Life – Final Thoughts
So give some or all of these a try. Over time your bank balance will start to thank you. As a final tip, once you’ve started living this lifestyle by following these frive ways to live a frugal life, do your best to avoid lifestyle inflation and you’ll continue to save!
I used to go to the grocery store twice a week, but since I wanted to track my spending, I cut it down to once a week. For me, it’s easier to track down my expenses and be consistent with my budget.
Clarisse @ Reach Financial Independence recently posted…5 Scenarios When Buying is Better than Renting
Clarisse,
Cutting back to once a week can also help substantially if you are inclined to get trapped into impulse purchases. You now only have 2 opportunities to get drawn in instead of just one 🙂
Your advice on leaving a residence without outdoor lighting at night is ABSURD! The cost of having a home invasion both in terms of injury, death or robbery far exceeds a lousy 100 dollars a year and in fact puts both You And your neighbors at risk/ robbers LOVE dark in which to do their breaking in… You are giving BAD advice!!!!
Louise,
Maybe the article was too long and you didn’t read it all the way through until the end? I suggested changing to CFL bulbs or getting a motion sensor light.
I know correlation does not imply causation, but we’ve never turned our lights on outside. We’ve lived in some pretty “interesting” neighborhoods and never been robbed.