ONE-MINUTE Frugal Habits to Save You Money! (+15 Ideas!)

so many people just assume that living frugally is going to take like a million years you're gonna have to hang all your clothes on a clothesline instead of using a dryer and you'll have to cook every meal from scratch that's just a myth and I'm here to bust it I sat down in less than an hour I came up with 15 different Frugal habits that all take less than a minute some were obviously less than that some of them I timed them because I am here for the accuracy and you can start all of them today so number one Frugal habit that takes less than a minute when you are shopping online fill your cart with whatever you like but don't hit the buy button and here's why so a year and a half ago I did a survey of a couple dozen former shopaholics performed shopaholics who'd somehow come to a better place and one of the tricks they taught me was to put whatever they wanted in their shopping carts diamond earrings good throw pillows good everything goes in the shopping cart but you don't hit buy so they would just close the app and walk away and then they would wait 24 48 hours and then come back to the cart that was useful for three different reasons the first one is for a lot of these former shop haul they said you know what just putting stuff in the cart that scratched the itch that made me feel like I was shopping that I was treating myself that that was all I needed was just put stuff in the cart and walk away awesome the second reason though if you know let's say you aren't one of the people who was easily appeased by fake shopping online delaying the purchase by a day or two can sometimes give you the space you need to decide whether or not you actually wanted something or whether it was just impulse shopping or whether you were really bored giving yourself that space to make logical decisions and not decisions based on emotion chess kiss brutalities okay but there's a secret third reason I have heard a rumor that some online shops if you put things in your cart and then walk away sometimes they'll send you an email to be like hey sorry you didn't finish your shopping trip here's a little coupon if you want to come over here and finish shopping with us now I checked through my own email folders Amazon Old Navy and like a maternity store the only three I didn't see coupons coming from any of those but if you've done this trick and you've actually got some of those coupons let us know in the comments so everyone can know uh which store to always wait before they buy it all right second whoo span two second Frugal habit that takes less than a minute pack snacks and drinks lots of them because at some point in your life you are going to be out and about in the world when all of a sudden you're going to be hungry or thirsty and because you're not a robot you're gonna need to eat or drink and if you don't have snacks packed in your car in your purse in the diaper bag whatever if you don't have snacks and drinks on you you're gonna go and spend at a vending machine or you're going to spend at a convenience store and the price you pay for convenience is so much higher than whatever the cost is for snacks at grocery stores which is already bananas by the way with inflation but it's even worse if you're gonna go and get a snack from a vending machine or from a drive-through or anything pack your snacks it takes less than 30 seconds to grab a granola bar from your pantry and stuff it in your purse and then you're good this especially applies if you have people in your family like toddlers or husbands who get hangry pack snacks for them too number three just use a little bit less this rule applies to basically everything I mean I'm talking detergents pasta sauce shampoo like anything that has a quantity that you need to consume or use up the next time you go to do the thing just use a little bit less than you normally would or a little bit less than the recipe calls for and just see if that's good enough if you're one of the people who thinks you need to use a full cup full of laundry detergent you gotta scale that weight down if you discover your clothes can get just as clean satisfactorily clean with two tablespoons of laundry detergent instead of like a fourth of a cup or a half of a cup you've extended the life of that detergent bottle by two or four times yay you that's a ton of savings and the more materials you can apply this rule to the more these savings are going to snowball is this being helpful yet because you can leave a like if it is four check places like Facebook Marketplace regularly without buying every single time just checking for items you're hunting for I talked in my last video on Frugal habits about having it to hunt for list but if I say what's on my list right now a walk my husband would really like a wok and so I've been hunting for a couple months casually not taking any more than one minute at a time when I'm at the thrift store for something else I just glance up and down at the kitchen supplies they have a walk no okay I do this on Facebook Marketplace sometimes I'll put walk look oh okay they don't have it less than a minute a this is going to help me keep an eye on the regular prices of things and be if it lets me know if this item does become available somewhere near me I can jump on it and then I have it but not at full price five check for free fun things happening in your area we humans like joy and fun and laughter the world is very willing to give us lots of opportunities to pay for those things but there are tons of free options so recently my town I'm gonna just show a clip of this my town had this for free last week as my family went and we saw these guys all stacked up on top of each other it was fantastic and my son got to pet a puppy and was delighted six do you have a job do you want to raise try spending one minute every day getting better at something that could make you eligible for a promotion or a raise at that job so does your job offer bonuses to people who knows speak other languages if you've got a lot of foreign language speakers in your area would they pay you more if you could be like yes I'm fluent in Spanish yes I'm fluent in Portuguese whatever Duolingo is free you can start learning a new language maybe you can start working toward another certification maybe you can just start watching YouTube videos about marketing if you want to be the manager and you get to be the one who designs the sign on Main Street every day you can be like hey guess what I can do the signs for you and I can increase our profits by 30 percent you know whatever it is at your job and you might be saying Hillary you told me this was a video about saving money but this sounds like you're trying to help me make money but guess what this saves you money too because if you would otherwise just be sitting on the couch watching TV with lots of commercials that are designed to get you to buy things or if you would otherwise be like online shopping and actively spending money but instead you're spending some time learning a new skill now you're not spending that money so you saved it I know people don't like this one but it's really useful this is like one of the epitome Frugal things that people look at and you're like what a waste of your life but washing reusable products I timed this one just because I wanted to make a point our Ziploc bags that expensive no they are not some people it might not sound like much savings but over time we're working towards snowballed savings and for such little work as just bag clean I think that's worth it in fact one time I lived for a week with a group of religious sisters you know like like nuns um and then their Community they had literally one of those like pull out laundry drying racks just for the Ziploc baggies that they washed every night and so I will you know you go down in the morning and there's just all these Ziploc bags hanging out to dry overnight it was fantastic eight when you're using a ingredient food item that you regularly are going through and you notice it is almost out immediately right on your grocery list do not wait until it's all out do not wait until it's like 10 minutes before you're about to go grocery shopping and you're doing the scan what do I need to buy because then you aren't going to have enough and when you go to make your next meal that requires this thing you're gonna be like ah darn I don't have enough better go to the grocery store and do you know what happens every time you go to the grocery store you buy so save yourself some impulse buys save yourself the extra gas to go back and forth from the store and just when something is about to be used up just write it on the list nine if your dad is anything like mine is then you've probably heard this one before but it's worth mentioning for those who haven't but when you are using water washing your hands washing the dishes whatever turn off the water you do not need to have that tap run run running as you lather your hands and sing the ABCs or whatever song you use I've also heard a rumor that in Europe the norm is to actually turn off the shower head while you're lathering your body and just turn it back on to rinse all the suds off now I can't confirm this because I've never lived in Europe but I know there are people who watch this channel from Europe people have got comments from Portugal and France so if you are a European or have ever lived in Europe I would love to know if this is like like one of those myths or if this is actually the norm over there 10. next time you are in the grocery store take an extra one minute and just walk down the freezer aisle and take a look things that are in the freezers not because you're going to buy them but because you are planning things from your own house that you can freeze that you probably didn't know you could freeze like I'm sure you knew get I'm sure you knew that frozen pizzas exist in frozen french fries but did you know that you could actually make them yourself and freeze them or did you know that you could make a big batch of waffles or a big batch of Pancakes and freeze them yourself I've been living The Frugal life for a few years now and even me every time I go down the freezer aisle even I go oh my gosh I never thought about freezing that what a fantastic idea and it just gets logged in the back they say knowledge is power we'll get to this end point 15 but having a good catalog of ideas is going to be helpful when you're saving money 11. check the apps for all the grocery stores that are within like reasonable distance to you especially the expensive ones and here's why where I live I've got two expensive grocery stores in my area they're called Hannaford and Shaw's Shaw's is an Albertson affiliate Hannaford is like a Northeastern one and I don't shop at either of these stores I don't shop at any store every single week I Bebop around sometimes I'm at Walmart sometimes I'm at Aldi's sometimes I'm at Hannaford occasionally I'll pick up a few things at Shaw's once in a while I go to the Amish store I don't have any store loyalty even then it still pays to check their apps here's why no no no no no no no no no here's my Hannaford account this is what I've saved with Hannaford's app just this year 339 here's Shaw's Shaw's this year I've saved 62.20 that's from using coupons and that's from use and that's from getting cash back Hannaford is amazing so this is why you want to check the apps because they can be really good do you know how long it takes to check an app less than a minute coupon scan scan scan nope flyer scan scan nope and you're only scanning the first blade to that flyer right like nothing else is actually a loss leader sale it's just marketing right 12. open and close your curtains in accordance with temperature savings so when we bought this house this house didn't have curtains and we did not go out and immediately buy curtains for every single window but over time as we found which windows were the leakiest because this is Main and it gets cold we started buying the thicker what's the name light blocking curtains insulated curtains sugar what is the name of them and when it's nice and sunny outside and you don't want the sun to be in all the windows are shut to keep all of the heat from the Sun to stay outside and when you want the heat to come inside you open the curtains admittedly that does require me looking like a jungle monkey to climb up around the furniture closing and shutting some windows it takes less than a minute open close your curtains according with whether you want heat coming in or going out all right 13. budgeting is great but it is not a one minute habit however ever this is a hack you can use if you're already budgeting every single month or you're working toward that skill have a budget thoughts list that's what we call it in our house you can call it whatever you want but all it is is a list that my husband and I jointly keep and whenever one of us thinks oh yeah next week it's my cousin's birthday I should be getting the present add cousin's birthday to the budget thoughts list oh dang my car really needs an oil change next month budget thoughts list that way when you go to budget at the beginning of the next month you have a list of all of the things that you need to have in the budget for that month when we first started budgeting and I know this is very common for a lot of people when they're new budgeters you just forget stuff it takes you a while to get used to the rhythm of it and you realize oh man I've had such a great perfect budget and now I have to blow it because I forgot about my great Aunt Bertha's birthday but if you have a list made in no no time at all just whenever you think of things you can look at when you're about ready to set your budget you're not going to forget as much stuff you probably still will the first couple budgets you make but it's okay because you're learning but as you practice and you get better you're going to have fewer of these things or they'll actually be emergencies which you can use your emergency fund for this one is crazy this goes against everything I was taught as a new driver I still can't believe it a little bit but I'll leave all of my evidence in the description and you can tell me what you think don't warm up your car in the winter before getting into it what the U.S department of energy Environment Canada and mechanics everywhere apparently all agree modern vehicles you know anything that's not like an actual antique car anything like in the last 20 30 years modern vehicles don't need more than 30 seconds for the engine to warm up before you can just drive off even in the middle of winter and if it's frigid like really really freaking cold apparently it's only you bump it up to a single minute so it's still going to be cold sitting in the car but your engine doesn't need that much time to warm itself up in fact I gotta read this verbatim because I in fact if you idle your car for 5 10 or 15 minutes not only are you wasting all of that fuel right it's like just going out to Nowhere you're also making your car actually seven to nineteen percent less fuel efficient for the entirety of that drive wherever you were driving it will mean you do have to dress warmly though because your car will be cold if you live where I do but if you need more convincing like I know I did I left a bunch of my sources in the description for your perusal all right and finally Point 15 take one minute every day to practice creativity because so much of being Frugal isn't actually about watching all of the YouTube videos to get as many tips as you can it's about looking at your problem in your life and your particular sets of circumstances and thinking is there any way I could solve this problem without spending money so many people think they're not creative because they like didn't like art class or music class or they can't write a poem but like creativity is so much bigger than that and you can be a very creative person just by figuring out new ways to stretch a dollar so the next time you're you're up against a problem and your immediate thought is oh man I gotta run to the startup to get this ingredient to get this material to get this solution just take one single minute and think is how many different ways can I come up with that solves this problem without using money maybe it's duct tape maybe it's Gorilla Glue there are a lot of ways to solve a lot of problems and I would be very encouraged to hear any of your creative ideas in the comments if you have any particular stories you want to share about creative moments you've had of course if you're struggling with creativity sometimes it helps to just watch someone else be creative a few times so you can watch me be creative and solve one of the problems I had recently in this video which I will send you to next and I'll see you over there by YouTube what he's born honey thank you I will put these over here somewhere

Channel: Homegrown Hillary

Views: 46,435

Keywords: Fast ways to save money, Frugal, daily frugal habits, frugal habits, frugal living, frugal living habits, frugal living hacks, frugal living ideas, frugal living tips, how to save money, money saving tips, save money

Id: MttgRGZxNQE

Length: 15min 43sec (943 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 20 2023