How to Live a More Frugal Lifestyle

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To live a more frugal lifestyle is to live a life where you do not spend a lot of money and I guess in a way be a bit more minimal with all your habits in your life. This could be with food, clothing, homeware and so on.

Basically a frugal lifestyle can be assumed to be where you sacrifice the quality and top things in life. However, this is not the case and actually you can choose and research how to live this kind of life that will add more value to your life.

What does it mean to live a frugal lifestyle?

Adding on to the points about frugal living is about living intentionally whilst being aware of your spending habits. Therefore, you will be able to prioritise what matters to you the most and cut back spending on things that don’t mean that much to you.

The best part about this way of life is it is completely up to you how you do it. You can create your own frugal lifestyle and cater it to your own needs and priorities. You don’t have to follow someone else, but you can gain inspiration from others.

Also it is important to not confuse frugal living to only buying cheap possessions. This is not the case and actually quite the opposite. Yeah it does involve budgeting but it just overall means you spend less on the things that don’t matter to you. For example, you could choose to spend less on clothing but more on travelling. That is living a frugal lifestyle.

You are giving yourself the chance to have complete control and financial freedom over your life. You can decide what matters to you.

Therefore in this post today I will be going through how you can begin to live a more frugal lifestyle.

Budgeting

I know I go on about budgeting all the time but creating and implementing a budget is crucial for financial success. I have been budgeting for the last 4 – 5 years now and it has been key for me to get rid of any bad habits but also allow me to save for areas of my life that matter to me the most.

You can grab my step by step guide to budgeting NOW, which is a nice and simple guide that strips everything back and begins your budgeting journey with the basics. But you can also grab a FREE monthly budget template too.

It is important to create a budget that not only works for you but is one that will help you be successful.

Bulk buying / bulk cooking

Now I am not saying that buying in bulk will help all the time but I personally find bulk buying is great most of the time. Not only in saving money but also allowing you more time for other things in your life to enjoy.

I have also related this to bulk cooking because I think these go well together as one point. But also bulk cooking has saved me not only a lot of time and energy, but again giving me back time during the week to focus on other things.

Sunday’s are a great day I personally find to just cook up a couple of meals and then portion them out for the week. Some I keep in the fridge and then the rest I freeze.

Shop in your wardrobe

I have previously spoke about this before but if you are into fashion and tend to have a lot of clothing items then consider heading into your wardrobe and “shopping” for that outfit.

This is a great way of living a frugal lifestyle because you can look into your wardrobe to find clothing items that you may have forgotten about. Plus you can also give yourself some new inspiration, and put together outfits that you previously didn’t know could go together!

Sell things you don’t need

In relation to the point above selling things you don’t need is not only great for our environment, but also giving your items a new lease of life. I guess that is why it is a part of the frugal lifestyle.

There are such a variety of places now that you can sell your items on like Depop, Facebook Marketplace or Ebay. This is also a great way of earning a little extra cash too, which I am sure would make anyone happy.

Enjoy other transport

Another great way to enjoy your frugal lifestyle is to travel places either by walking or using a bike or even public transport.

You can start this off by doing this a couple of times a week instead of taking your car and honestly you will realise how cost effective this is. Plus you will also be doing the environment a huge favour.

It is also a great way to just get yourself outside and by having that walk this can benefit your mental health and physical health, but also conjure up some inspiration for other areas of your life.

Take part in no spend challenges

You don’t have to do this all the time but a great idea to get you into the frugal lifestyle is to get yourself involved in a no spend challenge.

These challenges do throw you straight in the deep end but then you can work from then on to create the frugal lifestyle that you really want. This is because, doing a no spend challenge will open up your eyes to what matters to you the most and what habits you want to change in your life.

Once you have done this a first time it will eventually become easier and you can just throw in a no spend challenge every now and then or even push the boat out and try a whole year!

Have some fun for free

This is also something I have wrote about before to get involved in winter activities but for free.

I mean nothing sounds as good as being able to have fun but for free right? You would think that this might limit you to what you can do but you would be surprised at what is actually out there in our local communities and for FREE.

Some off the top of my head are as simple as heading to the local park, having a picnic, going to local museums that are normally run off donations so have free entry.

There you have it some ways you can begin living a more frugal lifestyle from today! As I have mentioned above there are so many ways you can live a frugal lifestyle and honestly I will continue to share tips and things I have learnt it other areas of my life, but for now I hope this post can inspire you to challenge yourself to live a life that matters to you.

Does living a frugal lifestyle sound like something for you? Do you have any tips?

Thanks for reading,

Gemma Jayne x

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