10 Frugal Living Tips

Being frugal basically means being careful with your money and being conscious of every spending decision. A frugal lifestyle doesn't mean you have to go without certain things or give up everything you enjoy but rather, it's about making smart decisions about the way you live, eat, shop and spend money.

As always use a little bit of critical thinking when you read posts like this because what works for one person might not work for you and your personal situation and that’s totally fine, these posts are about sharing tips and suggestions which you can then choose to follow or not follow.

Make a list, create a budget, and stick to it 

This is the foundation of a healthy financial life, and it may sound cliché, but it’s also imperative: you need to have a budget. A budget is vital in helping you keep track of your spending, so you know where your money goes even before you spend it. So how does that tie in with cheap living? I always think of a budget as a tool that helps you identify areas where you can cut back so you can maximize your savings. If you feel your clothing allocation is going to ruin your overall budget, then you probably need to postpone shopping or look for cheaper clothes elsewhere. A budget helps you decide what expenses to keep and what expenses to minimize or eliminate so you can live within your means.

 Another important activity that’s closely related to creating a budget is making a list. You go shopping a few times each week, and during those trips, how many times have you overspent or impulse bought something? If you can’t curb your impulsive buying behaviour, then you’re not living frugally. A list tells you what to get so you don’t end up getting anything else. It’s also essential to help you stick with your budget. 

Master the food shop

I talk a lot about how to save money on your food shop as it’s one of the main expenses that literally everyone has. To live frugally you want to be shopping smarter when it comes to food, some of the ways you can do this is by batch cooking meals, so you make one of two big meals per week and just portion them out to eat the same thing every day. This can feel a bit boring but it’s a great way to save money as you can buy all the ingredients in bulk. Meal prepping like this is also very beneficial because if you have food ready made it takes away that stress of deciding what to eat and might also stop you from getting a takeaway. It’s also a good idea to buy certain items that are reduced or on offer that week and base your meals around them… we don’t go into the reduced section and buy things willy nilly, we buy things that actually help us save money. I’ve got loads of food shopping tips and suggestions over on my tiktok and instagram. 

Buy secondhand 

Frugal people often buy things secondhand, and I’m talking about clothing, furniture, the cars that they drive. As we all know, buying a brand new car is not financially beneficial at all, it is always better to buy a used one. I’ve really been converted to buying everything off Vinted recently because you can find clothes that are brand new with the tags still on for a fraction of the price. This way we’re saving the environment and saving money so it really is a win-win. Don’t rule out buying things secondhand because you think it’s just someones old dusty items because chances are you can find things that are close to brand new and still very good quality. 

Declutter, donate and sell

So this leads on from my last point, I’m sure you have loads of things you don’t need or use anymore that you could sell yourself. Think about having a declutter every few months or so and put some things up on vinted or eBay to make a bit of extra money. Anything that doesn’t sell or isn’t worth selling can be donated to charity. Having a declutter really makes you think about how much stuff you have, like do we really need all this stuff, it really makes me question every item I own and how I could be living a more minimalist life and still be happy with what I have got. 

Learn some DIY skills

I cut my own hair and have been doing that for a couple of years now. As much as I know we need to keep hairdressers in business and they do a great job, I actually get so much hairdresser anxiety like I hate small talk and I hate other people touching my hair so it totally made sense for me to just learn how to do it myself and I bought some hairdressing scissors specifically so now it’s something I literally never pay for. It’s so worth learning how to do certain things yourself so you don’t have to pay someone else to do it for you. Learn how to cut hair, how to tailor your clothes, how to look after your car, groom your dog… there are so many services that you don’t have to pay for if you learn how to do it yourself.

Get rid of all the TV subscriptions

You actually don’t need any of them, you can live a perfectly happy and normal life without watching streaming services. The prices of these are constantly going up and I can guarantee you have more things to do with your life than sit and binge watch every show on Netflix. If you really want to be frugal, get rid of all of them. Although an alternative could be to  have only one subscription service going at a time and then cancel it once you’ve watched what you want. They usually all do a 30 day free trial anyway so you could sign up with a new email address each time and take advantage of the free month if there’s a specific show you want to watch. Again, we don’t have to give up all the things we enjoy, just be a bit more mindful of if we really need to be spending our money on subscriptions that we don’t really need or even use that often to warrant the cost. 

Shop savvy

If there are specific things you want to buy, be savvy about it! Use cashback sites to get money back, use multi buy deals if it’s something you use regularly, find coupons, discounts freebies. If you actively try to never buy anything at full price you can still get the things you want but you can also save a lot of money especially if you try to do this with everything the savings will always add up. One of my favourite cashback sites is Everup, it’s so easy to use, the percentage of cashback you get is great and you can play games in the app to win more cashback which is an extra little bit of fun.

Another cashback app I use in Airtime Rewards, it’s definitely the easiest to use in my opinion because you connect your debit and credit cards to the app and every time you spend money in one of the shops that they work with, you instantly get cashback and this just adds up, and then this cashback gets taken off your phone bill. I literally pay about £2 for my phone bill most months because of this.

Avoid unnecessary fees

If you want to take cash out and the ATM charges £2 for withdrawals then we’re going somewhere else. There is no need to be paying extra fees like this and it may seem small but it’s usually the little things that add up. In this category I’m also talking about credit card fees. If you choose to use credit cards because of the extra buyers protection or because it builds your credit score, this is great but you need to be paying it off in full every single month otherwise you’re gunna be paying interest which is just wasted money. Try and avoid it where possible with the exception of maybe paying interest on your mortgage because I don’t know anyone who can afford to buy a house outright without taking out a mortgage and therefore having to pay the interest too. 

Know how to keep your utility costs down

An electric blanket is the best thing you can buy in the winter, you’re heating the person not the house. They are very affordable and work wonders. You’ll save so much money if you don’t have to turn your heating on. Similarly, a dehumidifier is also a great purchase. It dries my clothes so quickly, again I don’t have to turn the heating on in the winter, and it also stops condensation and mould from forming around your windows which could further cost you money to fix. You also want to change your lightbulbs to LED bulbs which use a lot less electricity. Turn everything off at the wall when you’re not using it. And have short and quick showers to avoid leaving the water running for too long. 

Spend intentionally and mindfully

Do you actually want and need that thing you’re about to spend money on, will it improve your life in any way, will it help future you? Or is it just gunna provide temporary happiness? You need to be asking yourself these questions every time you want to spend your hard earned money. You could give yourself 48 hours to think about it before making the purchase, it’s good to just take a step back and ask yourself why you really want it and this can really just stop you from impulse buying or spending money that you just don’t need to be spending. A lot of people actually just shop out of boredom or because it gives them a very temporary dopamine hit but this is such a terrible habit and if you recognise that this is you, really think about how you can change that and what you could maybe do in place of shopping for happiness.

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