Reading Time: 4 minutes How To Live Frugally: The First Changes To Live A Frugal Lifestyle
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Are you considering living frugally. Are you doing so out of necessity? You may find that it is actually a lot easier to achieve than you might think. Plus the results of doing this kind of lifestyle change can also be quite huge for you in so many respects.
In this post, we will walk you through an exploration of where to begin. When you are deciding to live more frugally, what do you need to do first? What changes are most important upfront?
Table of Contents
What Does Frugal Living Mean?
It might be quite helpful to understand just what we mean by frugal living in the first place. This phrase can be used in some varied ways in different places and by different people. In essence it’s all about living to your means.
In other words, it’s to do with living in a way that you can not only afford, but comfortably so. That usually means cutting out a lot of extraneous things that you might not really need, for instance.
Working On Your Motivation
Figure out why it is that you are keen to try and live more frugally. Are you simply trying to save some money for emergencies, or is there some luxury you are saving up for? Or do you just want to avoid living too wastefully? It’s vital that you know what the real reasons are, so that you can much more effectively work on it.
If you are struggling with this, you might want to sit down and work it out so that you can understand your own reasons. The more effectively you do this, the more likely it is that you are going to stick with the frugal living thing for posterity.
The first change that you need to make now if you want to live frugally: your mindset. See the importance of your mindset. Try to understand the difference it can really make to your attempt at living frugally.
If your mind and heart are not really in it, then you might struggle to keep yourself on track, as we discussed briefly above. Your mindset is important, because if you get it right you will be able to keep yourself on the straight and narrow much more easily.
A good mindset for living frugally is that you are aware of the importance of doing so, happy to work at it, and keen to learn as you go along. Doing it this way should mean that you are much more likely to find real success with it in general.
You need a frugal mindset, of course: that means that you don’t want to buy something just for the sake of it, but rather you would prefer to keep hold of your money for posterity. It can take time to develop this mindset, but it is really important so it’s something to work on as necessary.
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Living Frugally: Your Home
The home is another major part of your life that needs thinking about if you are keen to live more frugally. After all, for most people it’s the main expense, or at least one of the main expenses you will have. Your home can be approached in a way where it is saving more money.
If you are able to move home, then you might be able to find a cheaper one somewhere. That will make you much more likely to keep your money in tact.
Beyond that, you might simply want to think about saving on household bills. This can be done in a number of ways, such as changing tariffs with your provider, changing the provider themselves, or simply ensuring that you are doing all you can to use less energy in order to save that way.
Your Vehicle
For anyone who owns a vehicle, it can be obvious that this is one of the major money-sinks that you can have. There are always ways in which you should be able to improve just how much it is costing you. First of all, buying second-hand is a good way to start.
When it comes to the maintenance of the vehicle too, you can approach this in a more frugal way. Make sure that you are maintaining it yourself in whatever ways you can. You might also want to think about doing all you can to find a mechanic that you can trust. This alone is often enough to save huge amounts of money on your car’s maintenance.
With all of this, you are going to find that working as a family is really important. It will mean you can encourage each other and make sure that you are much more likely to find success with the frugal way of living. So make sure that you recruit your family to do all this with you, if you can.
With it being done in this way, you are going to find it so much simpler and easier in general. Working as a family is always going to help.
You can live frugally pretty easily. Just make sure you are focused on these changes if you want to do so as soon as possible.
Greg is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 22+ years experience in Financial Services. He has held numerous FINRA Securities licenses (series 7, 63, 65, and 66), and is an expert on Investment Products and Financial Planning. Greg has 22+ years experience as a real estate investor and degrees in Psychology and Philosophy.
Greg has been quoted/interviewed in Yahoo Money, Yahoo Finance, USA Today, Authority Magazine, Realtor.com, Business Insider, and others.
Greg is an avid runner, and the father to identical twin girls and their awesome brother. His love of budgeting and his kids led him to join The Great Resignation in 2021.
Disclaimer: Any Financial Tips on ChaChingQueen are general and informational. Speak with a professional about your specific situation.