Frugal | What’s the easiest frugal thing you do?

What’s the easiest frugal thing you do?

Posted by Lynnae on October 11, 2007

If you're new here, you may want to find out more about me. Also, please consider subscribing via RSS or email. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve been watching my blog stats for a while, and I’ve noticed a trend in the search terms people use when they land on my blog.  I get a lot of hits for “being frugal”.  I’m assuming not everyone who searches for “being frugal” is looking specifically for my blog.  I also get a lot of hits for “how to be frugal” and “how to live frugally”.  I even had a person find my blog by searching for “how to live frugal and love it”.

Since so many people come to my blog looking for help in how to be frugal, I thought I’d dedicate a post to easy frugality.  What’s the easiest frugal thing you do?  I’d love to have a lot of reader input on this one.  So hit me with the best easy frugal tips you have!   I’ll start off with a few to get the creative frugal juices going.

Now that I’ve started you off, I would love for you, my readers, to weigh in.  What are your easiest frugal tips?  Lets help those who want to be frugal, who may not know where to start!  If I get lots tips in the comments, I’ll write a follow up post listing some (or all, if it’s feasible) of your ideas!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

  • del.icio.us
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • TwitThis
  • Sk-rt
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
Filed Under Lifestyle |

You Might Also Like

Comments

26 Responses to “What’s the easiest frugal thing you do?”

  1. plonkee on October 11th, 2007 5:21 am

    I get a discount for paying my utility bills by direct debit. The added advantage is that I’m much less likely to forget to pay them.

  2. Kandy on October 11th, 2007 5:49 am

    Do you really see a noticeable difference in your power bill? Or more of an “every penny counts and they all add up to dollars” type thing that combines with everything else to save money? I’ve been wanting to try these bulbs but Justin isn’t convinced it’d be worth the expense to “change” LOL

  3. E.D. on October 11th, 2007 5:50 am

    -toss catalogs without flipping through them, or even better, stop them from coming
    -get off promotional email lists advertising the lastest sales on stuff you don’t need anyway
    -buy bread, meat, and butter only when on sale and freeze it (buying a small chest freezer or even a standing freezer is worth the savings)

  4. Lynnae on October 11th, 2007 6:24 am
    @plonkee - I would love it if my power company did that!

    @Kandy - it’s hard to say really. I’ve been slowly implementing the bulbs over the last year as my bulbs burnt out. I just replaced the last few bulbs a few weeks ago, so I don’t have a new power bill. I hate changing light bulbs though, so they’re worth it for me. And check the sales, The ones I picked up a couple of weeks ago were only 99 cents.

    E.D. - great tips! I’m looking to get rid of our piano, so we have room for a small chest freezer. It drives me nuts when I see a great sale, and I can’t stock up at low prices, because there isn’t room in my freezer!

  5. Heather on October 11th, 2007 6:32 am

    Lynnae,my response was too long so I did it as a post on my blog linking back to your blog.

  6. Lynnae on October 11th, 2007 6:46 am
    No problem, Heather! I’ll have to head over to read it!
  7. Erin on October 11th, 2007 8:23 am

    I have been switching my lightbulbs to CFL’s as the regular ones burn out. It’s nice to know that the CFL’s I put in won’t need to be changed for 5-7 years! (of course we won’t be in this house anymore, so the future owners will benefit).

    I combine errands so that I drive efficiently and waste less gas. I’ll do all my errands in one or two days so that I’m not running out everyday.

    I also throw the catalogs straight into my recycling bin. No flipping through to see something I *need*.

  8. Dawn on October 11th, 2007 9:04 am

    I live for this stuff … and have been doing it for so long … (married 27 years to my high school sweetie) … that it has become automatic. Top favorites are:
    1.) BROWN BAG LUNCHES DURING THE WORK WEEK (They are so economical to make, and once you get use to it, it becomes second nature … like brushing your teeth).
    2.) CREATE AND USE A PRICE BOOK FOR YOUR HOUSEHOLD FOOD AND BATH/LAUNDRY/CLEANING PRODUCT (It takes a bit of effort to compile the book … but, once done, you can reduce your spending by a significant percentage).
    3.) DON’T SHY AWAY FROM THRIFT STORES FOR CLOTHING PURCHASE (My community thrift store even has a 25 cent day once a month. I can pick up any clothing item for 25 cents … you can’t beat that. I tend to find awesome name brand items as well … Ralph Lauren, AmberCrombie & Fitch, Mudd, Lucky, etc. I even take a step further by selling found items that my family and friends can’t use and reselling them on Ebay).

    I could go on and on … but, these are probably the ideas that help my household budget the most. Frugality can be a lot of fun!

  9. Jennifer on October 11th, 2007 10:07 am

    With the florescent bulbs-Parents magazine this month had a warning about them, as they have mercury in them. If they break, they can be toxic to children nearby. Make sure to handle them with gloves, and if one breaks, leave the house, with the windows open so the room can air out for a few hours.

  10. Paula on October 11th, 2007 10:33 am

    Hang laundry. Your dryer is the second biggest energy hog in the house.

    Menu plan, shop loss leaders, use coupons only for stuff that’s on sale and you actually will use.

    IE: the CFL bulbs. We changed 75% of our regular lightbulbs last year. I compared the electric bill when it came around and it was a bit lower, not 50% or anything, but definetly lower usage.

  11. Carol Mickey on October 11th, 2007 11:32 am

    I asked my husband to stop HBO on our cable because we really do not watch it last month and he just opened the cable bill and showed it to me and said “I did not realize how much it cost, loow how much lower our bill is”

  12. Lynnae on October 11th, 2007 7:33 pm
    Great tips, everyone! Keep ‘em coming! :)

    @Jennifer - thanks for the info on CFL bulbs. That’s definitely something to take into consideration.

  13. Mary on October 11th, 2007 7:33 pm

    I rely on sandwich bags instead of purchasing individually wrapped snacks, which are typically more expensive, unhealthy, and a waste of packaging.
    Sandwich bags can also be reused.

  14. Lynnae on October 11th, 2007 8:03 pm
    @Mary - I love sandwich bags! They are good for so many things!
  15. Alison on October 11th, 2007 8:13 pm

    I grocery shop at most once a week. I try to shop every ten days. I know I spend less on groceries overall when I am at the grocery store less frequently.

    I also stay home. Between shuttling my son to preschool, going to the grocery store, church, and play dates for my son, for the most part I get enough time out of the house. If the urge to get out does come, I stick to visiting the library or the park, places that don’t require spending money. Gone are my days of going to Target just for fun. :)

  16. ChristianPF on October 11th, 2007 8:18 pm

    I try not to waste money on food - I found that I save a whole lot of money just by eating all of the food I buy at the grocery store each week!!

  17. boomeyers on October 11th, 2007 9:00 pm

    I loved reading the Tightwad Gazette series of books. This was the best help to me to find encouragement and “black belt” tightwaddery.

    The most obvious tip is EAT AT HOME! Even if you have to spend a little more at the grocery store to make it more “resturanty”. It is worth it!

    Plan your trips! Save on the gas!

    At this point, I paid $4.00 for a gallon of milk yesterday. Buying a cow??? A thought??

  18. Hilda on October 11th, 2007 10:53 pm

    My easiest frugal thing to do is NOT going to the salon to get a manicure, pedicure and eyebrow wax. On rare occassions where I want color on my nails or shape/’clean’ my eyebrows, I just do it myself.

    I’m saving a lot compared to my co-workers who goes to the salon every couple of weeks to get French tips, pedicure, wax, etc to the tune of at least $40 a pop. Let’s see, that’s $40 x 2 (a month) x 12 (in a year) = $960 savings a year! That’s almost 25% of the maximum contribution to a Roth IRA one can make for 2007.

  19. Pablo on October 11th, 2007 11:09 pm

    There are a few things that are easy for me in regards to being frugal ..

    1) Bringing lunch to work. I work a graveyard shift alone and can’t leave, very occasionally I will order a pizza but I have gotten much better about that.

    2) Use my PayPal Debit card to pay for everything and get 1% cash back instead of my banks debit card. My credit is not good enough(EEK!) to get a credit card with better rewards, so this is great in that situation.

    3) Some people may not get any use out of this or agree with it, but I am a smoker and was spending outrageous amounts of money on cigarettes per month(more than $100). All things considered, I still enjoy smoking and did not want to quite. I instead started packing my own cigarettes. Box of empty cigarette tubes with filters is only $3, a 6oz Tin of tobacco ranges anywhere from $7-$15. My brand is $12. That is enough to make a carton(10 packs, or 200 cigarettes) for $15. The initial investment of a tube injector was only $7 and it’s lasted almost 2 years now. Bonus effects? I smoke less than I used to, instead of almost a carton a week i now go a month with about a carton and a half. Also the tobacco tastes much better in my opinion.

    I am always on the lookout for new ways to be frugal too. I love posts like this that are laced with ideas =)

  20. Lynnae on October 12th, 2007 8:48 am
    You guys are all really great! Look for a post with tips from the readers sometime next week! There’s a lot of good stuff here!
  21. rocketc on October 16th, 2007 9:37 am

    This isn’t for everyone - but, we don’t drink or smoke. Very easy on the wallet.

  22. Joel on October 16th, 2007 6:34 pm

    The easiest frugal think I did was convince my boss to let me work from home a couple days a week. Saves on gas, lunch, and STRESS!

  23. Stacey Williams Dunse on December 3rd, 2007 1:57 pm

    We use cloth napkins for every meal. Most days, we use the same ones all day (breakfast and supper). We are a family of 5 so we have at least 2 loads of laundry per day. It doesn’t take much to add the cloth napkins to the load :)
    saves lots on paper napkins which we used to spend $5-10 per month on :)
    plus, we’re never “out” of napkins at a key moment

  24. Moi on April 23rd, 2008 7:39 pm

    I do a lot of these things too!
    One other thing we do is freeze leftovers into meal sized portions and once every week or two we each choose a meal from the freezer - a lot of those leftovers would otherwise have beeen (eventually) thrown out. We’ve noticed a reduction in our grocery spending since we began this.

Trackbacks

  1. rocket finance » Blog Archive » 96th Festival of Frugality
  2. The Readers Speak: The Easy Frugal Things They Do | beingfrugal.net

Leave a Reply