Happy frugal Friday friends! That too many F words on a Friday?
Hi everyone, my name is Kate and today I'm going to share with you 30 easy
Frugal habits that will help you save money
number one is
Turn off the lights every time you leave a room. I don't even think about this anymore
It's just a habit when you are done with a room. Turn the light off when you leave if you're done in the bathroom
Turn it off on your way out
My son has learned this also and it's a habit of both of ours that saves us lots of money not wasting electricity
Number two and this one took me a while to do. I'm not quite sure why
Unplug your appliances after you use them. My best example is my coffee maker. I used to just leave it plugged in all the time
but there's this thing called phantom energy and
You're paying for that even when your stuff is plugged in and you don't have it on so
Our electricity bill is actually super low
You can do that with I wouldn't obviously do it with your refrigerator
But your coffeemaker your microwave your toaster
Anything that you use and then you're done with it and aren't gonna use it again, maybe for another day or even longer
Unplug it same thing with your chargers you guys unplug your Chargers. Don't just leave them in there with nothing charging take them out
Number three is save your change keep those pennies those nickels dimes quarters
Keep them in a jar somewhere or a piggy bank
I used to love doing that as a kid and I still do and my son has gotten into that practice as well
Save your change and then go cash it in
It's money number four is recycled. I
Live in the state of Maine and we get to recycle almost all of our cans and bottles
So I keep those in bags bring them to the redemption center boom cash
Number five is to have an emergency fund if you follow Dave Ramsey
He will recommend baby step one is to save $1,000 if you have a much lower income
You can even start with 500
The point is do your absolute best maybe even with all these other habits to save up for an emergency fund
So that when stuff goes down
It's not gonna throw you all off and throw your budget off and put you in a stressful position save for an emergency fund
Number 6 if you are living frugally you already know this live below your means
know what your salary is know what you bring in every month and then spend as
Much less than that as you possibly can that makes sense
Frugal people live below their means even if you can afford a bigger house
That doesn't mean you have to just because you can afford a fancier car
Doesn't mean you should you could be saving money for the stuff that you really want to spend it on so live below your means
number 7
Stay home
this Saturday was a perfect example I was
wanting to do something fun with my son and
He had said mama could go play outside and there's just some days parents
do you just like
The last thing you feel like doing is going outside and playing and I was like mmm
I said to my mom like maybe I'll just take him to the arcade which if you go to the arcade
You're probably going to spend about forty dollars like it in order to like really get an experience out of that
um, and it's a complete waste of money as you know,
If you've ever been to an arcade
you spend all this money and they get this like little thing that you probably could have gotten at the dollar store as
Their prize it's terrible, but it's fun. But instead I said, all right
Well, yeah, let's go outside
So I will leave a picture of these little cars that I got Kaden for Easter, which I talked about in a previous video
And
We they're these little pullback cars. We sat in my driveway
One of my driveways is at a slant and we roll we raced those cars those little pullback cars with dinosaur heads on them
For almost two hours and we had a blast we were laughing our butts off
We were racing him down
He'd go retrieve them and then we'd like trade teams and we just made a whole fun afternoon out of it
it was sunny that day and
I'll leave a couple pictures here if I can't
We had so much fun and it was free
Number eight is frugal people learn how to do things for free on
YouTube
For example, if you're looking on tips on how to grow your small YouTube channel
Check out this video right here
That I did it's for free
I learned how to do a lot of things on YouTube and it is a hundred percent free
number nine
This one might be a little you might need a little bravery but cut your own hair
There was a time
Maybe like a decade back where my family was in a rough financial situation and so to help
Contribute to saving money. I
watched a YouTube video
by
What's-her-name, it's Jay. By the way, she is a hairdresser and she's like the cutest girl
It's Jay by the way, and she had at the time his awesome hair cutting video
so I learned to cut my own hair and I used to cut my own hair for like
maybe it was like six months to a year or so so that I wouldn't have to spend money on that and
I also dyed my own hair at that time for like a box from Walmart, which was like eight dollars instead of spending
You know sixty to a hundred dollars getting your hair cut and dyed
That's something you can do on your own at least in the meantime
I don't do that now I get my hair done
But if you're in a place where you need to save money
That's something you could definitely try. And if you mess it up, you could always go to the hairdresser to fix it number ten is
stick to a budget and
adapt it accordingly as the month goes by I see a lot of youtubers showing their budgets saying
What they think it's gonna be what it actually is
In like all these things I don't do that. I put what I think it's gonna be and
If it's not I adjust it
right away, for example
My gas budget ranges between fifty and sixty dollars a month
So it's I say $60.00 for that and I only spend 40
I will just automatically put the 20 into my savings. I don't track that it was less than I thought. I just do it
Frugal people
drink alcohol
a little less and they definitely smoke less if you're a smoker I
See, I've never been a smoker. So I've never had to
overcome that I also have asthma so it's just like an
Absolute no-no can't be a smoker won't ever be a smoker but smoking you guys if you're smoking
Think about how costly that is and I know just me saying that to you is not gonna do it
But it's it's very expensive same with alcohol
I'd rather just go home with a bottle of wine that I got at a reasonable price than going out to a restaurant and
Getting several glasses that you know is like triple or quadruple
That but also I am a single parent so drinking a lot. It is not something I can do
I do not like feeling like crap the next day frugal people don't drink as much to save money and they absolutely smoke less to
number 12 drink more water
easy breezy drink more water number 13 practice zero food waste I
don't know if I'll ever get to zero but I try like heck you guys and for me zero food waste is
Not buying extra groceries that I'm gonna throw away. I hate wasting food and probably if you're watching this and you're a frugal person
It just kills you're right, and I've already talked about the produce thing and in my other video
Just don't overbuy when you're not gonna actually eat it
Try to figure out what you're actually gonna eat
So you don't have to waste food such a waste of money number 14 is sell everything
You're not using if you're not using it make some money off of it get it out of your house
Make some more space in your house. Make some more money get rid of everything
You're not using make some cash. It adds up real quick
number 15 use digital coupons
Regular coupons or coupon codes, you know
I've told you I would never buy anything online without a coupon code and you can just google it find it easily
Almost every single time. I buy something it's with a coupon code
Number 16 is used up every drop of every product you have
Don't use your shampoo down here and then throw it out because you want another scent use it all your toothpaste, man
You know what to do squeeze it till the very end use up all your products. It will save you so much money
Use it up. Come on number 17 is to unpay per towel
That means try to minimize your paper towel use
I am not completely hundred percent paper towel free, and I'm afraid I never will be you guys
I need paper towels. I will give you the perfect example of why cat puke. I
Cannot
sorry, I
Can't clean that up
With a towel and then throw it in my washing machine. I know some people have no problem with that. I can't I'm sorry
I won't I refuse so
I will use paper towels for cat barf but
Other things like I think I told you guys before in another video
I used to wash my hands and then dry them with my paper towels
No, now I have lots of kitchen towels at my disposal
Right right around in the kitchen and I use that I dry dishes I use
Towels as much as I can and then I just wash them and that saves a ton of money. I used to spend so
Much on paper towels and now I'm so glad I've reduced it
Number eighteen is to eat at home most of the time breakfast lunch and dinner
Make your own bring your own saves you
hundreds of dollars if you are used to going out and on top of that especially if you have kids or even for yourself
bring like a water bottle with you when you go places so you don't have to buy a drink somewhere and
Bring snacks if I didn't have snacks in my bags
Constantly for my son. I would spend so much money more money out because kids there always be like
I'm hungry. So bring whatever you've got
Bring some crackers bring a fruit snack bring something with you on the go so that you don't have to a perfect example
my son and I went to a hockey game and
We were cheering on the team and he was starving. Thank God
I had packed snacks because if I had to go to the concession stand it's so
Expensive at the concession stand at a hockey game and Kaden doesn't even really like that food
So just be prepared bring stuff from home number 19
Explore minimalism. Do you guys know about minimalism some of you watching this?
I'm sure are already practicing it, but let me read you
I'm gonna look down for a second because I wanted some people are like are
People that practice frugal living minimalist not necessarily, but just listen to these definitions. Okay when you google frugal
Everyone needs a frugal Google once in a while
it says being frugal means one is less wasteful and more resourceful and
People who live a frugal lifestyle are simply happily living with less now. That's what Google says now
I follow the minimalist says what is minimalism?
They said if we had to sum it up in a single sentence
we would say minimalism is a tool to
rid yourself of life's excess in favor of focusing on what's important so you can find
Happiness fulfillment and freedom you guys see a nice little connection there if you have not looked up
minimalism or seen their documentary on Netflix
Check it out number 20. Look at your bank statement every single day
You guys know I enjoy this look at it though. See if there's any weird charges and if there are call on it immediately
Number 21 use the library. I told you me and my son go every so often probably
Two to three times a month probably like we went yesterday and got seven new books
We have tons of books at home, but it just adds a little spice and fun. Don't forget about the library. It's awesome
number 22 frugal people practice frugal exercise
walking running jogging biking
Playing basketball outside whatever it takes but move walking is my favorite, of course
number 23 save gas by batching errands
Don't be going
to
Target or Walmart
one day and then you have to go all the way back out the next like make sure you know if you have to get
Gas if you have to go to the post office
If you have to go to the store
Like try to do it all at the same time where things are close to each other so you can save money on gas
Number 24 is wash your clothes less
Not trying to be gross, but sometimes we wear things and they're not even sweaty or anything wrong with it
And we just throw it in the wash. Even if we only wore it for an hour - if it's really not dirty
Don't throw it in the wash
- less laundry
Number 25 eat less meat meat is expensive
I have adopted kind of a more meat on the side philosophy saves a ton of money
Number 26 is utilize free entertainment
There are parks. There are free concerts
There's a picnic you can have with your own food utilize free entertainment and enjoy it to the fullest
number 27 now if I had a partner I might practice this one or try but if you're really
Needing to save money you could try to go with one car instead of two for some people. That's not gonna work
But there are many people. I know that work it out with just one car
So if you're really needing to save money see if that's an option for you
Think of all the money you'll save the car payment
If you're still paying a car payment the gas the insurance try one car if you can I don't have that option
But maybe you could try it
number 28 downsize your house if you have a huge house and
You can't afford that house and you're drowning in your mortgage payments get a smaller one get one
You can afford don't waste time with that. If you are living beyond your means figure out a way to fix it
number 29 if I
Were like scorched earth trying to save money. I would never go out to eat
I wouldn't go to concerts I wouldn't be paying for
Shows any of that kind of stuff. I'm in a little bit better place right now. So those things I can afford me
But if I were scorched earth living trying to pay off debt, I would not be doing any of that for for a little while
Depends depends on your situation, but if you're really trying to save money cut that out for a little bit see what happens
and number 30 this one I
Wish I could do but I am doing
But because I have to so if I had a partner and
I had two incomes I would do my absolute best
to live on one if
You're a family right now and you have two incomes like right now. I'm a single parent
We live on my income we have to
but if I had another whole income I would do my darndest for us to live off of one and
Save and invest with the rest. I'm just putting it out there
I'm sure it's not the first time you've ever heard that some people think that's crazy talk and maybe it is but I know people
That do it. So just something to put out there frugal people
Save as much money as they can and if you are part of a dual income household, that's something you could definitely give a shot
Now it is your turn
What's your best frugal living tip that you can share with us that we can give a try?
We learned so much from our comments you guys I love looking in the comments and reading what you guys are putting
Cuz we all learn from them. So please participate in the comments
Let us know what you do that helps because we all want to save money
Thank you so much for watching. If you like this video, give me a thumbs up, please hit subscribe and
Smash that bell if you want to come back when I post the next one. Happy Friday everyone. See you soon
