Hehe, I’ll admit I’m abit of a Frugal Mama!
frugalˈfruːɡ(ə)l/adjective
‘sparing or economical as regards money or food’
I love to save and not waste anything. I dislike it when I have excess and waste it because I’ve bought it on impulse or thought the item was a bargain, but later casting it aside, forgetting about it. Has that ever happened to you?
More or less, I’m quite frugal – having kids and bills helps to keep me frugal:) I try to teach my kids and I hope my attitudes and money habits have grown on them – I’ll find out when they marry and move out, I guess! There was a time when I went online shopping “unnecessarily” and wasted money on clothes I didn’t need. Half the time, the clothes just ended up hanging in my wardrobe, but I managed to sell some of them…now I just have no desire to shop online, I think that was just a phase because I was bored. Fortunately, that phase didn’t get me into debt.
My frugality means I cut down on expenses/bills/spending where I can:
Here are some things I did to be frugal:
- Don’t take your kids shopping in malls, because they always want to buy something – instead do something fun together like a walk in the park.
- Eat home cooked meals and treat takeaways as a once a week treat.
- Make the food instead of buying them, for eg my date balls (dates, apricots, coconut shreds)
- Buy in bulk when the item is on sale. For eg, tissue boxes on sale for .99cents, we bought 20 at a time, saving .80c per box = $16 savings
- Recycle gift bags and envelopes – I always save gift bags and re-use them, who looks at their gift bags upclose anyway?
- Have short showers like 3 minute showers instead of 10 minutes ones. The water bill dropped from $80 to $62 per month on average when we all did this.
- Use an electric blanket instead of a heater in winter. The electric blanket uses 60 watts of power instead of my oil heater of 1200 watts.
- When cooking, use the elements or slow cooker instead of the oven.
- Turn off the lights when you’re not in the room. Change all your light bulbs to led lights.
- Hand wash the dishes, don’t use the dishwasher which uses power and a lot of water.
- Invest in a heat pump in your lounge where it spreads the air into other rooms easily – this is far more economical than heaters.
- Buy household items second hand – they’re just as good, or shop around online for the best deal before you buy.
Do you have frugral ways too? Do share!