33 FRUGAL LIVING TIPS That Really Work | SAVE MONEY Hacks

coming at you right now is going to be a list of a lot and i can't tell you how many because i haven't counted them a list of frugal tips that i i do most of these some i don't i think they're useful for some people if they choose to implement them in your life now you don't have to do all of these things but if you incorporate a couple of them i bet you can save some money in your budget and then you can go do those things that you really really want to do for you that might be travel could be a purse could be going out for that delicious steak dinner you know what i mean here is my list of a lot of frugal tips for you sit back relax grab a beverage and i hope you enjoy eat leftovers you will save a ton of money on your grocery budget if you just eat the food you already have in your house instead of running to the mcdonald's by the way i went through the drive through at mcdonald's recently it was a little bit of an accident but i was thinking i would buy maybe one of their salads or a grilled chicken sandwich did you know that you can't buy a salad for mcdonald's and they also do not sell grilled chicken sandwiches there's literally nothing on the menu that is healthy in any way at all maybe that's just my area but that was shocking to me two is to cut your own hair and that is not something that i do but all of my boys in the house we do cut all of their hair cut cable or if you don't have cable and you do all of the streaming services maybe pick one or two and then rotate through them i recently canceled netflix so right now okay well that's not fair because i have worked with acorn tv before so i have theirs for free but currently mostly using amazon prime that's the one i go to those are the shows and movies that we watch in fact my whole family just watched the 1995 version of sense and sensibility yesterday use a budget pay attention to where your money goes live at or below your means that means if you make a thousand dollars a month do not spend more than a thousand dollars a month if you make ten thousand dollars a month do not spend twelve thousand dollars a month make sure you do not outspend your income and along those lines if you can't pay cash you cannot afford it please tell me you have seen the snl skit with steve martin where he's like but how would i pay for this and they're like you save your money and he's like and where would you get this saved money it's really funny you need to go check it out if you get a raise at your job save it instead of upping your lifestyle something that dave and i did every time he got a raise was bump our 401k contributions in the united states that is a tax sheltered company matched retirement account so there's a limit on how much you can put in there per year by the government but we were never close to the max ever every year what he would get an annual cost of living raise we would take all of that figure out the percentage and bump our percentage of the paycheck by that raise our take-home never got higher but the amount we put to our retirement did get higher every single year you can buy generic for a lot of stuff and it tastes the same i will give one disclaimer to that the great value brand shredded hashbrowns do not taste like the ore ida brand they don't i would not recommend take your lunch to work if you're like my friend billy who likes to go out for lunch every single day and get his burger from wendy's at five dollars every single day that's 25 a week that's a hundred dollars a month that you could have done something else with now in billy's case it does fit into his budget so i'm not gonna give him a hard time about it but that's a hundred dollars a hundred dollars is a lot of money you can do all kinds of things with a hundred dollars you can do a no spend week i've done that here on my channel before it was actually really fun to see all the small ways we could cut down on expenses from riding our bike and getting movies at the library instead of renting something or getting in the car to drive somewhere and making do with the groceries you have in your pantry which leads me into you can i think they call it shelf cooking i call it like pantry clean out freezer clean out just get out all the things that you have and eat those instead another one is to stop shopping for fun doing that window shopping yes even online it just like gets this oh i want that i want it now this like instant gratification need in us so stop doing it stop torturing yourself don't pay high interest on things now i know in the last year or so a lot of people had to fall back on credit cards to pay their bills when a lot of people were out of work a lot of people had to close their businesses and those credit card interest rates can be upwards of 30 30 to 33 interest all so i would love to thank upstart for sponsoring today's video if you want to maybe consolidate your debt into a lower interest rate payment so you don't have to pay those super super high interest rates upstart is the fast and easy way to get a personal loan to pay off your debt all online whether it's paying off a credit card or consolidating that high interest debt over half a million people have used upstart to get a simple fixed monthly payment they find smarter rates with trusted partners because they assess more than just your credit score they have a five minute online rate check where you can see your rate up front for loans from 1 000 to 50 000 and you can get approved the same day and receive funds as fast as one business day find out how upstart can lower your monthly payments today when you go to upstart.com ffm that's upstart.com ffm don't forget to use my link down below to let them know that i sent you loan amounts will be determined based on your credit income certain other information provided in your loan application just go to upstart.com ffm thank you upstart for partnering with me on today's video and let's move on to some more frugal tips grocery shop once a week you'll be way less tempted if you don't go into the store all of the time use your library i love the public library sad news for me mine has closed indefinitely recently i think a car ran into it so it's damaged like the building is damaged and they're like we're closed forever so i don't know what i'm gonna do now but from books to cookbooks to movies to audiobooks you can get all kinds of stuff for free you can go take a walk for exercise it does not cost anything to go walk outside pack snacks instead of getting hungry when you're out when my kids were small and we would go to the park and the library like i just said i was the queen of snacks just call me the snack lady i always had food at the ready for my kids and for me so heaven forbid they threw a fit when we were out and i was forced to run into mcdonald's or i don't even know where i would have gone back then sonic for some tots or something give me some of your tots no go find your own waste that money when i could just put some animal crackers in my bag stop buying junk food now listen i like my junk food as much as the next person but it is expensive i mean it's not expensive but when you add up like the three dollars the five dollars if i got every single one of my kids that one dollar box of movie candy that's six bucks for what sugar and cavities while i do like it maybe stop doing it for a little bit or do it less often to save that coin use cleaning rags instead of paper towels now i've mostly used cleaning racks i do have paper towels just in case like there's broken glass or something i i just want to throw that away i don't want to mess with like potentially getting glass somewhere i had bad experience when i was a teenager with a glass shard in my foot glass makes me super nervous if there's that kind of an accident or something i would rather use a paper towel and throw it away but the majority of the time if you're doing standard cleaning or dusting or wiping off your kitchen counters rags all the way when i did my laundry stripping experiment in my house i had a ton of comments saying that if you don't use a fabric softener your clothes don't get as dingy what are the studies on that should we just xna the fabric softener because it's actually making your clothes hold onto dirt more are you telling me we have been wasting our money on fabric softener all these years well no problemo i'm not gonna buy it anymore ignore everybody else comparison is the thief of joy it is truly when you're like oh they have a nice car wow those shoes i'm guilty of the shoes because i like shoes wow her hair looks so nice or whatever it is her wedding ring is so beautiful and huge and i'm so jealous if you just ignore other people who'd be a lot happier and probably less likely to spend money this one's so interesting is to understand the hedonic principle and basically what that means is you have this steady state of happiness right here and you think that when you buy something you will take your level of happiness and you will it will be here for example you think if i only had that car i would be happier so you're here you buy the car and you think you're going to be here but that's not what happens you go up and then you go right back down to where you were yes it does give you this bump but then it you go right back down to where you were because buying things is something that we think makes us happy but actually doesn't make us happy in fact i will leave a link down below to a podcast called the happiness lab where they talk about the science of being happy we are horrible at understanding what makes us happy because we think it's going to be buying things and it isn't i'll leave that down below it is wonderful if you have never listened to it before let's talk printers so when you buy a printer i like to consider the cost of the toner or the ink that you're going to need to refill it with this last time that dave and i bought a printer we got a brother printer first of all it's been working for years with no issues and number two the brother brand accepts generic printer cartridges when i used to have an epson or a canon sometimes they wouldn't take the generic ones and i would have to go buy that brand and they were a lot of money the brother printer that i have been using for seven years with no issues i buy this multi-pack on amazon for like 15 it comes with two extra large blacks and two sets of all the other colors let's talk birthday parties now the last year maybe is not representative of normal let's call it but i have seen families go all out for birthday parties while it looked fun when my kids were little and i didn't have any money for a birthday party my kids when they were two and three they don't remember any of that the birthday party when they're small like the one year two year three year i would say up to six the kid will not remember think about who you're doing the birthday party for and why in what ways can you cut it down in my area the last few years i've been able to find some deals in the following ways we have a hotel that will rent out their pool for 65 for two hours for a birthday party and then you get the little side room too rent it out for the two hours you invite 12 kids you go get a cake from i don't know albertson's i think albertsons has the best bakery hands down way better than walmart get your cake and you're in it 75 ish or something like that which is a lot compared to the birthday parties i did when my kids were super super small i think when tyler was 10 we did something like that you can rent out our gymnastic gym for a hundred dollars for two hours same thing you could bring a cake you could make your own cake i love to run to little caesars and get like four or five of those five dollar pizzas and let the kids eat that and the best part is i didn't have to clean up my house to invite people over and i don't have to clean up after we're done amazing i have thrown some awesome birthday parties for well under 100 for my kids if you're going way bigger than that and it's a stretch on the budget maybe just reevaluate what you're doing and consider other options i like technology as much as the next guy that's not true i don't like it as much as my husband does my husband is like a tech geek he loves all the new stuff he wants the new stuff as soon as it comes out and it is okay to have those things we just need to pick and choose and not upgrade just for upgrading's sake and i feel like dave has done a good job with toning it back down a little bit as cell phones have become more standard smartphones have become more standard like i didn't get my first smartphone until 2012. i haven't even had one for 10 years yet and so to me it feels a little more normal but i totally remember not having one all of my kids have been in school for a long time fashions come and go and backpacks can come and go but something i don't like to do is get them a new backpack every single year i bought all of my kids this high sierra backpack off of amazon for not that much 20 or 25 each they've been using them for years i've been so impressed by the quality they work totally fine they're big enough to fit all of their books i would recommend getting a high quality backpack and using it for a really really long time and try and avoid anything that's too fashion statement e you know because as soon as they get out of high school probably not going to use a backpack anymore meal plan go to a bread bread outlet bakery just type into your google search bar discount bakery near me or bread outlet near me you might be able to find one see if you can find a discount store in your area i've been able to find one almost everywhere that i've ever lived including dallas including a small town in north carolina including random stops in utah st george utah has one salt lake city utah has a ton of them idaho has several don't buy bottled water just except for emergencies i do keep bottled water around my house just in case we lose water i don't know if that's going to happen but not having drinking water is not something i want to deal with but when it comes to day-to-day stuff i definitely don't use the plastic bottles i use blender bottles mostly and just fill them with water if you have not shopped around car and homeowners insurance recently maybe give it a go i did that a year and a half ago just because i was like i wonder if it could be cheaper somewhere else and i cut my bill in half in half by switching to a different company so check it out see if you can save some money the next one is if you are going to be doing that online shopping don't forget to go through a cashback app i have been using what used to be ebates since 2008. uh it is now called racketin is the one like my go-to all the time it finds me coupon codes it gives me a percentage cash back into my account which i then cash out via paypal every quarter i think they're gonna give you a sweet bonus right now i think they're gonna give you 25 for signing up with my link down below if you have not ever tried a cashback app they are so easy they all have like a google chrome extension they find it automatically and then you get money for the stuff you're buying anyway last thing for you is dave and i were going through our debt-free journey and we did not have five dollars to go buy a plain new shirt it was really really hard and i got the advice to write down a list of small ticket items that we could buy one item a month so it wasn't so restrictive it was little things it was like a new bike helmet for my because i rode my bike and i think my new bike helmet was 20 like these were not high expensive things but we allowed ourselves these little things that were kind of needs actually but we would put off for the sake of the bigger goal if you're in a partnership you both agree on it everyone in the household agrees on it be strategic about what you do instead of new couches for the living room right at thousands of dollars instead in my case one of the things in my cases was a bike pump so i could pump up my bike tires for exercise i bought my bike pump 15 years ago in the middle of our debt-free journey it cost me 40 it was a lot of money at the time it has lasted me this whole time it still works fine it's okay to allow yourself a few things here or there huge thanks to upstart for partnering with me today you want to maybe consolidate or lower your monthly payment go to upstart.com ffm first link down below if you want to go check it out tell them i sent you thanks for hanging out with me if i forgot any frugal tips that you think are imperative and i did not mention leave those down below in the comments i would love to read them and i'm sure everybody checking out the comments would love some additional tips as well my throat is parched so i'm going to go get a beverage christine out

Channel: Frugal Fit Mom

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Keywords: frugal living, frugal, frugal living tips, frugal living hacks, frugal living tips 2021, frugal living ideas, living frugally, living frugally to save money, frugal lifestyle, frugal tips, saving money tips, saving money tips and tricks, save money, how to save money, frugal living tips that actually work, how to live frugally, how to be frugal, money saving hacks, money saving ideas, living frugal, frugal family, frugal habits, ffm, frugal fit mom

Id: 2iTTgcTYZL8

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Wed May 12 2021