Living frugally is not easy especially when you are getting started. Besides learning new ways to save money and budget your pennies, you also need to practice frugal living habits that make your life easier and keep money stress under control. If you are new to a frugal lifestyle and want to boost your savings, here are my best 35 frugal living tips for beginners to save money.
1. Create a budget
Establishing a budget helps you understand where your money goes and how to manage your finances more efficiently. Almost every frugal person you will come across will tell you the incredible benefits of budgeting in their daily financial decisions.
You need to know how much you make, where it goes, and if each dollar is used to fulfill your short-term and long-term saving goals. A lack of budget usually leads to overspending. Every person who does not budget their money has one or all of the following conditions.
- Impulse shopping
- Bad money habits such as gambling
- Lack of savings such as retirement savings, emergency funds, etc.
- Financial hardships due to bad decisions
- Lack of investments.
To live a meaningful frugal life, create a personal budget that aligns with your frugal living goals. Even if it’s a simple draft on a piece of paper, it will still serve its purpose. Having a simple budget is better than living without a budget at all.
Read more: 7 Steps to Make a Personal Budget
2. Cut down the cable
While streaming services are essential for fighting boredom and keeping up with the world, you don’t need to spend all your savings on streaming services. This is why cutting down your cable expenses is one of the best frugal living tips for beginners to save money. You can save hundreds yearly by switching to cheaper streaming services or using an antenna for local channels.
3. Use public transportation
Most people don’t like public transportation due to being unreliable. Other people don’t like the smell of buses or trains. But, if you are looking for easy frugal living tips for beginners, cutting down your transportation cost is a great way to get started and boost your savings.
If your city has reliable public transportation, taking buses or trains when commuting can save you hundreds of dollars. You can also use a bike or walk to work if you live close to work.
4. Make your meals at home
While living frugally can be intimidating, especially for beginners, there are simple ways to live cheaply without depriving yourself of necessities. For example, making your meal at home instead of eating out daily can save you hundreds of dollars monthly. If you are struggling with excessive spending and living paycheck to paycheck, avoiding restaurants and making meals at home can significantly decrease your monthly expenses.
5. Buy generic products
Living frugally does not require changing your life completely or living off beans and rice as some people often think. The products you buy and where you buy them make all the difference. An essential frugal living tip for beginners is to buy generic products. If you did not know about it, there is no big difference between generic and brand-name products besides the brand.
Often, generic products are just as good as their name-brand counterparts, but for a fraction of the cost. Buying generic products is one of the best frugal living strategies that helped me maintain the same lifestyle while saving money.
You might also like: 21 best money-saving challenges to try in 2024
6. Utilize the library for all your readings and movies
There is no better way to live frugally than getting access to all the resources you need for free. One of these resources is reading materials such as books, movies, music, and more. If you have been spending too much on these products, you might need to try my frugal living tips to save money. That is taking advantage of public libraries. Libraries offer books, movies, and sometimes even classes for free, helping you cut out entertainment costs.
Every city and county has libraries you can use for free. Even if they don’t have the book, movies, show, etc, that you need, they can order them for you for free. You don’t need to pay a penny to check out anything from the library. All you need to check out anything from the library is a library card and these are given for free. You will also have three weeks to return it which can be renewed if you are not done yet.
You might also like: 11 clever ways to save money on textbooks in college
7. Reduce utility costs
Utility costs are usually expensive during the summer due to high AC power consumption to cool down homes. AC alone can account for about 60% of your summer utility bills. For this reason, lowering your utility bill is a smart frugal living tip for beginners you can start practicing.
To lower your monthly electric consumption during the summer, use energy-efficient appliances, be mindful of energy use, and use a smart thermostat. Read the full guide with these tips to save money on electricity.
8. Shop second-hand
If you are new to a frugal lifestyle, you might not know about sophisticated ways to save money. But, I have an easier way to keep your expenses low and boost your savings. Buying second-hand products whenever possible is one of the easiest ways to adapt to frugal living as a beginner. Again these products won’t be new but will still serve the purpose and get the job done.
Buying used items can save you money and you can often get items of similar quality as new ones. If you are buying clothes for example, shop at stores like Thrift Store, Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc. You can find anything you want to buy at a fraction of the cost and save money.
9. Grow your food
Most frugal people that I know grow most of their food. While being a gardener is not a requirement to becoming a frugal person, it makes your life easier and helps cut down your grocery bill. You can easily grow most of the foods you eat on your own. Even if you don’t have a lot of space, growing herbs and greens in small pots on your patio can still lower the cost of your groceries.
More tips to cut down your grocery bills: 45 Ways to save money on groceries
10. Use coupons
To my knowledge, couponing is one of the best frugal living tips for beginners to save money. Yes, it can take time to go through magazines, and companies’ websites and tear down coupons. But, if you have time, you can easily get most of your groceries and other items you buy for free using coupons.
I have a friend who is an extreme cooponer and one day she bought over $200 of groceries with coopons. Can you imagine getting over $200 worth of groceries for free? That is a lot of savings. Coupons and discount apps are great tools to help you live frugally and save money.
11. Try meal prep
Making your meals can help you save more money and live frugally. Meal prep, however, can help you save even more money. Usually, people decide to make their meals at home only to give up on the second day. Preparing meals for the week ahead of time can save time and reduce impulse take-out decisions.
12. Save money on car maintenance
If you have a car, keeping up with regular maintenance is a clever frugal living strategy to save money. Car repairs due to negligence or not doing routine checkups such as oil changes, regulating tire pressure, and maintaining a good level of fluids can be expensive. But, you cannot live frugally when you leave things to chance. Regular car maintenance can protect your car from unnecessary repairs, saving you money in the process.
13. Buy in bulk
If there is an item you like to buy in great quantities or use very often, buying it in bulk can effectively help you live frugally. Generally, you get a discount when you buy items in bulk. Not every store allows you to buy in bulk.
Sam’s Club and Costco are some of the best store chains to buy products in bulk. Typically, items that don’t spoil fast such as canned meat, fried beans, rice, and dried or frozen items are some of the best times to buy in bulk when living frugally.
14. Make your cleaning supplies
It is easier to practice most frugal living habits when you learn how to DYI products you use daily. frugal lifestyle is all about utilizing the tools and resources you have to make products you need at low cost. It is all about being resourceful.
One of the most common products you can make at home to save money when living frugally is cleaning supplies. I know you might not like this idea but if you can make some of these products yourself, you will save a lot of money over the long run.
Many household items can be used to make inexpensive and eco-friendly cleaning supplies. For example, it is easy to make your soap and other detergents. Even home sprays, essential oils, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and distilled white vinegar can all be made at home to save money.
15. Rent instead of buying
Are you looking for easy ways to make money and live frugally? If you do, renting instead of buying could be the greatest frugal living tip you will ever try. I am not trying to say that renting is cheaper than buying. If you can find a cheap home being sold at a discount and you have enough savings, buying such a home might be cheaper than renting.
Most people wreck their finances by buying expensive homes. Unless it is cheaper to buy than rent, you should not buy a house when living frugally. Buying a house comes with hidden costs such as interest, property tax, insurance, and regular home repairs. If you are not careful, the money you spend on these overhead expenses can easily make it harder to develop a practical frugal money-saving strategy.
Also, when you buy a house with loans, you are not in control of your income. So, a simple economic downturn such as a recession can easily put your finances out of balance and cost you the house and your financial future.
15. Avoid impulse purchase
I have met dozens of people who told me that none of the frugal living tips they learned about ever worked. Then I asked them why. A common answer I received was that “they cannot avoid buying the things they want because they work hard for their money“.
That is the answer I get. Their frugal money-saving strategies never worked simply because they could not stop themselves from overspending. The idea that you deserve to buy something simply because you worked hard for your money is simply the root cause of all financial hardships. People buy expensive houses, brand-new cars, boats, and electronics because they work hard for the money and desire to look rich.
People buy everything they think about and overspend due to a lack of discipline and good money habits. If you want to succeed with your frugal living strategies, avoid doing what most people do. Avoid buying things because you think you deserve them. Buy things because you need them. Wait for a day, week, or month before making large purchases to avoid buying on impulse.
16. Make your coffee at home
Did you know that coffee is one of the biggest things people spend money on? Coffee alone can cost you thousands of dollars yearly if you are not mindful of your coffee consumption. According to Balance Coffee, the average American buys about 1,095 cups of coffee a year. This is an estimate of 3 cups of coffee per day. The same coffee consumption statistic shows that women spend about $2,327 on coffee while men spend $1,934.
This is a lot of spending on coffee alone. To lower the cost of your coffee when living frugally, start making your coffee at home instead of buying expensive coffee daily. All it takes is a coffee machine, water, and your favorite coffee beans or coffee grounds. With this frugal living tip, you can cut your coffee spending by as much as 95% yearly.
17. DIY most of your projects
A frugal living lifestyle works best when you can eliminate unnecessary expenses. That is you need to do most things by yourself and hire a professional only if you cannot fix it. Start with simple tasks such as minor home repairs and easy-to-do car repairs and oil changes. Then try to fix everything in your home that gets broken.
If you don’t know how to do it, look it up on YouTube or other DIY social platforms. The more things you fix yourself, the more money you will save and take control of your finances.
18. Limit streaming/membership subscriptions
Online subscriptions and movie streaming services are some of the reasons people never save money. Most people have almost at least three to five movie streaming services including Hulu, HBO, Disney, Netflix, and Amazon. These subscriptions can cost you $200 monthly to watch movies.
If you want to apply frugal money-saving tips I will highlight in this post, avoid overspending on your streaming services and online subscriptions. While you don’t need to close all your streaming services, having more than you need robs you of the chance to save and invest in your future. Having zero to one streaming service is ideal for savvy savers. You can also pick a cheap subscription if you are okay with being distracted by ads.
19. Shop during the out-of-season period
One of the secrets of successful frugal living is shopping seasonal items during off-season months. For example, trying to buy an airplane ticket for the summer during the summer is usually very expensive. This is because most people travel during the summer and that pushes airfair prices on the roof. But, you can get a big discount if you purchase your summer airfare during Jan, Feb, or March.
This frugal saving tip also works on items like clothes, electronics, etc. If you have items on your bucket list, purchase them during the off-season period to help you live frugally and boost your savings.
20. Save money on water
Water is another element that can easily cost you a lot of money and make it harder to live frugally. If you spend too much water watering your lawn, running water while brushing your teeth, taking longer showers, or using a dishwasher daily, you are wasting too much water.
Water management is essential among frugal people as it is good for the environment and a great savings strategy. Being mindful of your water usage saves you money over the long run and it is a sustainable way to live frugally, especially in states where water is scarce such as California and Arizona.
Installing water-saving devices and fixing leaks can decrease your water bill.
21. Pack lunches
If you can’t stop yourself from grabbing a quick meal at the nearest fast food on a busy day, you might need to learn from this frugal living tip for beginners to save money. It is not a secret. Packing your lunch is one of the best ways to practice frugal living. Not only will your lunch be healthier, but it will also save you money as the food you make is always cheaper than buying from restaurants.
22. Look for free entertainment
One of the greatest frugal living tips for beginners to save money is to cut back on entertainment expenses. Do you happen to attend every concert in your city and never miss random costly events? Or do you pay a lot of money for fun sports and entertainment? If so, you need to stop these money habits as they lead to overspending and extravagant lifestyles.
To live frugally, look for free community events and entertainment options in your city. For example, some libraries and schools have free events that are enjoyable for people of all ages. You can also attend other events such as volunteering, free park events, etc. The point here is that you don’t need to spend money to have fun.
23. Use a clothesline
When I first visited my friends who practice extreme frugal lifestyles, I was surprised to see them using clotheslines when they have dryers inside their buildings. My first impression was that their dryers were broken. I later learned that their dryers worked but they needed to save money.
That is right. Just because you have a dryer, does not mean you need to use it. If you want to live frugally and save money, using a clothesline can be a great way to cut down your electric bill. Every dollar you save improves your finances and boosts your savings.
24. Compare prices
Bargaining prices is a common habit among frugal people. The secret is to pay as little money as possible on almost every purchase. This is where apps that compare prices and coupons such as Rakuten, Flipp, Ibota, and many more come into play. Always compare prices and shop where you are getting the most discounts.
Some stores also give you discounts on certain products when you can show them where the same product is being sold at a cheaper price.
25. Quit smoking
Just like drinking, smoking is another factor that hinders people’s ability to achieve financial success. Some people spend more than $10 daily on cigarettes alone without considering other expensive stuff they smoke. Besides being good for your health, quitting smoking can save you money.
For example, if you spend $10 per day on cigarettes, you would have spent $3,650 by the end of the year. That is a lot of money that went down the drain you could have used to pay off your debts or invest in your future. I know it is not easy to quit smoking especially if you are addicted to nicotine. But, if you can lower your smoking expenses, it will be much easier to save money and live frugally especially if you are new to frugal living.
26. Plan shopping trips
Frugal people always track their expenses and manage their savings. Even if an official budget is not created, living frugally requires being mindful of your money habits daily. One of the best frugal living tips for beginners to save money is to plan your shopping trips. This works by creating a shopping list and the amount you plan to spend.
This frugal living tip alone will help you buy what you need and avoid impulse shopping which is the biggest reason people overspend. Every frugal person shops with a list and you should create your own list to achieve the same results.
27. Ditch the gym
Do you have one of these luxury gym memberships? Or are you paying for special gym classes such as Zumba and Intensity? If so, keeping these subscriptions might hinder your effort to become frugal. You don’t need a gym membership or pay hundreds of dollars to be fit. You can walk run outside or buy simple lifting equipment such as a cheap bike and a few dumbells.
Again, living frugally requires utilizing resources you have already to avoid overspending. That is why ditching your gym membership is one of the best frugal living tips for beginners to save money. Cancel your gym memberships and use natural environments like running in parks to improve your physical health for free.
28. Learn how to sew
Sewing is a great hobby that can also serve as a way to live frugally. Most people throw their clothes away whenever they see a small tear in them. For frugal people, however, the story is different. Frugal people usually fix their clothes with sewing machines to avoid buying new clothes or paying someone to fix them. To live frugally, start fixing your clothes just like successful frugal people.
29. Avoid eating out frequently
If you have habits of eating out every day or frequently, try to eat at home to save more money. Most frugal people that I know, avoid eating in restaurants frequently as it is hard to live frugally while wasting too much money on food. You can save more money when you make your food and prep your meals whenever possible.
30. Use cash
Another great frugal living tip for beginners to save money is to use cash on your daily purchases. While credit cards are great for shopping, overspending on your credit cards can ruin your finances and destroy your credit score. Use cash instead of credit cards, to minimize your spending and live frugally. Using cash can help you manage your spending and avoid overspending on credit.
31. Shop at farmer’s markets
If you are like me and like cheap, organic, and fresh food, shopping at a farmer’s market will be a great way to eat cheap and healthy. Why is shopping at a farmer’s market a great frugal living idea for most people? From my experience, it is because you buy only what you need and they don’t have impulse products that grab your attention.
Because the food you purchase from farmer’s markets is also fresh, it tends to last longer than the food you buy from stores which are usually GMOs and heavily sprayed by chemicals. Start shopping at the farmer’s market to live frugally.
32. Sell unused items
Selling items you no longer use is one of the best frugal living tips for beginners to save money. For example, if you have unused gift cards, you can flip them online and make extra cash. Do you have clothes you no longer use, sell them on one of the websites I listed in this article. If you have used electronics that are outdated or you no longer use them, sell them online to earn extra cash.
The key here is that decluttering your home and selling items you no longer need or use, will lower your need to own more and bring in more income. If you practice this habit, you can easily adopt a frugal lifestyle, save money over time, and increase your income.
33. Consolidate your debt
One of the greatest frugal living tips for beginners to save money is consolidating your debts. Debt consolidation refers to bundling all your debts usually revolving credit debts into a single debt that is easy to pay off. Debt consolidation might also come with a lower interest rate which saves you money in interest payments.
Frugal living tips are intended to lower your expenses and increase your savings. Since interest charges cost you more money over time, you can reduce these expenses by consolidating your debts.
34. Avoid late fees
Late fees are some of the most common ways people waste money. For example, if you are late for your rent payment, your landlord can easily charge you $50 the first day and a few dollars per day after. That is a lot of free money you are giving to the landlord. Or if you have loans and credit cards, any late payment results in excessive fees that will hinder your progress toward financial independence.
For this reason, avoiding late fees is one of the best frugal living tips for beginners to save money. Start by setting up reminders and paying your bills on time. Even if you don’t have the full payment, at least pay the minimum payment required to avoid late fees.
35. DIY gifts
Did you know that most people appreciate homemade gift cards more than those you get from stores? That is right. When it comes to giving gifts, homemade ones stand out among millions of people. This is because people appreciate the thought, time, and effort you put into getting the gift than the gift itself. Usually, your gift is something they can buy with their own money. But, the time you put in, care, and effort cannot be bought.
Frugal people know this secret best and they DYI every gift they give to give a big impression but also save money at the same time. If you want to live frugally, start making gifts by hand using your talents rather than spending hundreds of dollars to buy store products. This frugal living tip not only will save you more money, but also it will leave long-lasting memories.
Do you have an expensive apartment costing you an arm and a leg? If you do, finding a roommate is a great way to lower your monthly living expenses and live frugally. Your rent should not cost more than 20% of your income. And if you are higher than this value, you probably need to find someone to live with you and cut down on your costs.
Living frugally might also mean sharing your home with someone to lower your mortgage monthly payments. Even if the house is fully paid off, you can still use extra cash by renting out an extra room you are not using.
37. Try carpooling
One of the best frugal living tips for beginners that saves money is carpooling. What is carpooling and how does it work? In short, carpooling involves multiple people sharing one car and splitting the transportation costs.
The purpose of carpooling is not to make a profit. Instead, it is to lower the transportation cost for everyone in the car. If you want to live frugally through carpooling, start sharing rides with your friends or neighbors who commute daily in the same area. You will only need to pay a fraction of the cost to get to your destination.
