I may not be the most frugal person in the world, but I do understand that frugality can save me money. Please keep in mind that I don’t think frugal is a synonym for cheap. It just means buying less of what you don’t need and prioritizing quality over quantity when it comes to stuff. You can be frugal and live well too since frugal living can lead to a more balanced life and save you a ton of cash to spend or save as you wish.
Frugal Living Can Keep you Out of Debt
Lots of people are ravaged by debt as they spend more money than they make. A frugal lifestyle can keep this from happening to you. If credit cards make it too easy to spend, you can adopt a cash only mentality and record your spending. Anyone can learn to patiently save money for the items that you want to purchase and to spend time finding the best deals on quality products. Frugal living can save you thousands of dollars in interest charges.
Frugal Living Can Save you Money on Entertainment
A frugal lifestyle does not mean you have to give up all fun, but it does usually lead to finding inexpensive alternatives. For example, there are lots of ways that you can enjoy your weekly movie fix without spending a ton at the movie theaters. Your local library may have a great collection of movies to check out. If not, services like Redbox allow you to rent a movie for $1 a night. That is a big savings over the $7-$15 that you may spend at the theater, and that doesn’t even include gas, snacks, and drinks.
Frugal Living Can Cut your Dining Bill
You can save money and stay in shape at the same time by cooking more home cooked meals and eating out less. You have very little control over the cost or calorie content of the meals that restaurants serve you, but you can control costs and calories on home cooked food. My nod to frugality and food is cutting and using a few coupons each week for items we would buy anyway. Other frugal ideas would be to keep an eye out for the store that has your staples for the lowest costs. You can also build up a stockpile of your most used non-perishables or frozen items when they are on sale.
Frugal Living Can Trim your Gas Bill
You can even be frugal with transportation. You can save yourself some gas money by driving less. Whether you combine errand runs or look for alternative modes of transportation, you can save money. I have friends that use a bicycle whenever they can. I have others that simply run all of their errands once a week. Frugality leads me to need less in general, which cuts down on the trips out. Now if I can just give up my frozen yogurt habit…
What other frugal living tips can you think of for us?
Crystal Stemberger uses Budgeting in the Fun Stuff to write about finding the balance between paying your bills, saving for your future, and budgeting in the fun stuff along the way.