Ask the reader–what’s your best frugal tip?
There are lots of ways to save both money and resources and be more frugal. What works for one person doesn’t always work for another. Some of us skimp on loo paper, others enjoy that little luxury. You might save money by growing food, or you might use deals to save on going out. Maybe you have a savings plan or you avoid credit cards.
The question for this month is: what is your best frugal tip? If a friend asked you how to be frugal, where would you tell them to start?
Have you read these posts?
- frugal tip for the week: do nothing
- tip tuesday–beyond the status update. using facebook for frugal ends and an invitation
- tip tuesday – frugal pantry organisation
- 2012 frugal and thriving reader survey
- Why Frugal and Thriving
SAVE MONEY AND TIME ON THE GROCERIES
Great post Melissa! There are lots of tips I get from your website. From my perspective though after moving house earlier this year we realised how much stuff we had accumulated – and many friends would describe us as being fairly non-materialistic. Since moving we’ve aimed for our home to be clutter-free. If you make that a priority then the follow on effect will most likely be to only buy goods that you really need and therefore the endless buying of products/gadgets will cease. The other tip would be to only buy something new if you absolutely have to, otherwise obtain it second hand/borrow it/make it etc.
We are the same. We’re in a declutter mode *again*. Great tip!
The most important thing I do to keep frugal is to track every dollar I spend. I have a budget drawn up in excel, and I enter in everything we spend as a family, so that I can see exactly where all the money goes, how much we spend on what compared to years past, and know that we have enough to cover every bill, and emergencies. I would go insane with worry if I didn’t know exactly how much money I was ‘allowed’ to spend, and how much I needed to cover bills etc. Peace of mind, and also, what you record, you pay a lot more attention to. It cultivates a spirit of mindfulness and restraint on spending.
It’s great to hear from another ‘tracker’. I agree, tracking your budget and expenses takes the stress and worry out of finances!
Great post
My top frugal tip is to stop eating out and start cooking at home. I’m constantly amazed by how much restaurants and cafes charge for something I could easily make myself at home for a fraction of the cost.
Mr Omnivore and I do eat out occasionally, but we usually make sure that it is something we can’t cook easily at home. And we enjoy it a lot more when it is a special treat. I also try to make sure I have snacks and a water bottle with me at all times to avoid buying food when I am out and about.
Takeaway is our one frugal failure and it’s usually when I’m tired and lazy (did I mention we live next door to Dolminos and Red Rooster?
). Takeaway is SO much more expensive than cooking at home! Not to mention what it’s doing to my waist line. Great tip!
Thanks for the tip, Economies of Kale. I’m extremely guilty of eating out too much. Not necessarily junk food–I’m vegan, so it tends to me speciality cafes and restaurants and I go for something healthy-ish and interesting. It’s often though. We might go out out once or twice a week–we live in the CBD, so everything is so convenient. And I’ll buy lunch out maybe 2-3 times per week.
Lately, we have been getting into the habit of making big batches of a dish and freezing it. Making it less tempting to go out for dinner and easier to just reheat something and dine at home.
Number one best ever frugal tip? Learn to cook from scratch. Not only do you save money, but you know exactly what your family is eating.
As an example:
a 100g packet of (approximately 12) choc-chip cookies from the supermarket costs $3.46, or 29c /cookie;
a packet mix to make 15 choc-chip cookies costs $5.19, or 34c /cookie;
and the ingredients to make 80 choc-chip cookies from scratch costs me $9.34, which breaks down to 11c /cookie. (costings from Coles online website).
Doesn’t sound like much, but when you add up two cookies per kid per school day, you’re looking at substantial savings. In my house, that means 20 cookies per week, 40 school weeks in a year, that’s 800 cookies per year, just in school lunch boxes!
that means:
Store-bought cookies = $232 /year
Packet mix cookies = $272 /year
Home baked cookies = $88 /year
That’s great you know exactly your savings!! Thanks for sharing the sums. Coincidently, I was eating a homemade choc chip cookie when I first read your comment
Taking a sandwich to work each day. I get a weeks lunches for the price of one lunch from a cafe.
Thanks, it’s amazing how simple things like this can add up over the course of the year.
I’m with Kate! Food, food and food. By cooking completely from scratch you can save a fortune. I remember a time when I stressed over the cost of groceries but it doesn’t seem a big deal anymore. And grow veggies. It soothes the soul while saving money!
Thanks Linda. Good tip about the veggies. There’s nothing like eating fresh out of the garden!
I would say to do a weekly menu plan and plan your shopping around it. Incorporate ways to use your leftovers throughout the week.
Set yourself a limit to spend on groceries and stick to it.
I’ve done this for the past 6 weeks or so and we have halved our grocery bill!
Congratulations! That’s a huge saving. Menu planning is awesome!
My number one tip – get organised. Especially with clutter. Having clutter in your environment not only wastes time and money it stiffles you on an emotional level, leading to frustration and falling back to the “old ways” because its too hard to stick to the new habits.
So go through ya drawers girls (and boys LOL), Disgard (either sell or donate if possible) and be ruthless with your energy suckers. Dont get into the trap of “one day I will (insert the words, repair, use, find time to do….), just make a decision and stick to it.
Will save you time, money (and sanity) in the long run.
Yes! Totally agree. I fight constantly with the “one day I will…” One day rarely comes!
I agree with Tania-meal plan, cook from scratch and use leftovers up. My favourite way to use cooked veg up is with a use it up vegetable curry, lovely
Yum, good idea!
I can never get myself organised to menu plan, I wish I could though. However I never buy my lunch. I save so much money that way.
I also buy in bulk where I can, and make freezable meals.
Recently I started getting a set amount of money direct debited to the gas and electricity & phone. Now I never get a late fee. Which I was often hit with because I am…again…unorganised.
You Tube is an excellent source of entertainment too! Be it funny, educational or just weird. I have not bought or hired a DVD since we increased our download limit…which was cheaper to do than our current plan anyway…double save!!
I also keep my receipts and count them up at the end of the fortnight or month…depending how I’m going with my dis-organisation….haha..then I can see what I’m wasting my money on and kick myself in the pants for it. It’s easier to do that for me because I pay for most things with my eftpos and I’m always worried I will lose my wallet and any cash that might be in it.
Hi Ara, sounds like you are organised if you make freezable meals!
Ditto with the YouTube, we also watch ABC iView online instead of getting DVDs and we too increased our limit for less than what we used to pay. I hope one day Australia will get Netflix or similar, the UK got it this year I think.
ABC iView is the best. SBS On Demand is great too, and TED.
Since having my daughter and becoming a stay at home Mum, I purchase most of our clothes & shoes second hand from local charity shops, on ebay or local facebook selling pages. If you can pop in regularly to the shops or online you can get some unique & funky things for a fraction of the price. This is a real money saver especially when the littlies grow so fast – a pair of worn yet quality shoes are fine when all they’re going to do is wear them for a month or two anyway.
I still buy the inexpensive basics from the department stores to supplement what I haven’t been able to source. The key is to think ahead too – If you find something that is a big size but know will be the right size for the future season grab it and store it.
Great tip! We have had some great kids buys from the op shop or garage sales for 50c (and the little lady can wear a lot of them too).
Where are you storing your clothes, I have to ask
.
If you want to make savings on baby and children’s clothing my biggest tip is to check out the locations and dates for the baby and kids markets around Australia (http://babykidsmarket.com.au/). Hopefully one is close to you. I try to get to every market throughout the year in my area (every second month) and pick up next to new, pre loved, brand labels for a fraction of the retail price.
Currently under the bed in the caravan now we’re travelling! – I have to be ‘frugal’ with space and weight- but when we were in our house I had clothes/shoes wherever I could fit them – under the bed, in the bottom draw, in the suitcases etc
It’s amazing how quickly they grow into them
My number one tip — be a savvy produce shopper. I’m lucky enough to have Adelaide’s Central Markets close by and like to get in there at about 1:30pm on a Saturday when they are reduce the price of everything. One of my favourite stalls, Fred McMahon Fruit & Veg, tends to clear stuff “3 for $2″ at about that time. The produce is still good, especially if you are going to use it within a day or two. And that leads to my number two tip — cook big batches and freeze the rest.