Our Frugal Lifestyle

Yesterday I wrote about our journey going from relatively wasteful to being relatively frugal. To me frugal means being conscious of where your money is going, spending it wisely and recycling or reusing goods where it makes sense. After reading this you may think we are more cheapskates than frugal but it’s not that we don’t spend money because we do! Only now it’s in a more restrained manner and like I said earlier the money is spent where it counts. Eliminating “financial barnacles”, as my husband likes to call them, is letting us realize our financial goals a lot quicker. Financial barnacles are those little hangers-on expenses that you pay each month, they chew through your cash, are typically services that don’t add value to your life and well you really don’t need them.

Here are some ways that we have adopted frugality into our lives. You may wish to take a few on board if you too are looking to become a little more frugal and realize your financial goals quicker (say, get out of debt? Or maybe put money in a saving account found through Mozo? (http://mozo.com.au/savings-accounts)).

1. Haircuts.
In our home it’s haircuts a-la-mom. I don’t have any formal training but cutting kids hair is really straight forward. It doesn’t cost anything, apart from the cost of a pair of shears. Best of all you can do it when it suits you, there’s no piling into the car to go to the barber and no fighting in public to get the kids to stay put in the chair.

2. Pay with cash.
Paying with cash has made us a lot more conscious about where we’re spending money and just how much. It’s easy to buy things and throw it on a credit card but when you have $50 in your wallet and you have to pay $30 for an item you may just think twice about what you’re buying. Do I really need this? Do I really want to spend over half of what I have on this item? I know all about the rewards argument for using credit cards but we’ve found that we save more actual money by using cash than we ever make in rewards using credit cards.

3. Generic brand.
When shopping we buy generic brand as much as we can. Generally, we don’t notice much of a difference between generic and name brand food items. However, where we do notice a difference in either quality or taste we do buy brand name.

4. Buy second hand.
There are some great deals on second hand items and it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice quality. For any major purchases we now plan well ahead and keep an eye out online and in newspapers for what we’re looking for. Planning ahead does two things. It allows you to get a really great price (new or used) as you have time on your side and it also takes away the impulsiveness of most purchases. If you still want an item 2-3 months later then it’s likely a good purchase for you. Some examples of items we have bought second hand are: washer and drier, stove, microwave, dining room table, and dishwasher and they are all still in great working order a year later.

5. Eat at home.
We rarely go out to eat. If we eat out once a month on average that’s a lot. Let’s face it eating out is expensive! Where we live it’s not uncommon for a dinner for two to cost upwards of $70-$80 and that’s not at a real high end restaurant either. I also find that the meals we eat at home are generally healthier and, in my opinion, my cooking tastes a bit better than what we get at most restaurants.

6. Pack a lunch.
Everyday my husband goes to work he takes a lunch with him. Again, he opts for healthier food choices and it’s a lot less expensive. If he takes leftovers from the night before there is even less waste.

7. Shop for gifts throughout the year.
The benefits of this are twofold. 1) You can take advantage of sales when they pop up throughout the year and 2) You eliminate those mad dashes to the mall to get the perfect gift an hour before the party, thus eliminating stress! We have gotten most of our families to use wishlist.com to list their Birthday, Anniversary and Christmas wishes. This is an awesome site and when kept up to date it’s easy to keep an eye out for a good deal.

8. Drink water.
Not only is it great for your body it’s good for your pocket book too. We drink a lot of water in our house (yes, good old fashioned unfiltered tap water) and it is a lot less expensive than pops and juices – this is one of my frugal favorites!

9. Car services.
If you’re a bit of a handy person, don’t mind getting a bit dirty and can find your way around under the hood, servicing your own car can save you a lot of money in labor costs. My husband recently got set up to do regular car services (car jack, axle stands, creeper etc…). He’s pretty handy and has some experience with oil changes, filter changes, and tire rotations etc…so this will save us a fair bit of money in the coming years.

10. Walk.
Where we can, we walk. Going to get the mail, corner store for milk or to the library – if it’s nice out, and it’s not too far, walk. This saves money on gas, wear and tear on the car, is better for the environment, and is better for you as well! It gets you moving which makes you feel great and can lift your mood!

11. No TV.
In an attempt to take back some of our free time we decided to cancel the cable and avoid satellite TV. This is one of the barnacles that wasn’t adding any value to our lives and yet kept taking money month after month. It’s truly been one of the best things we’ve done for our family. We still have farmer vision (4 free to air stations) that when we’re desperate for contact with the outside world we can at least tune in to something (although it’s rare).

12. Cell phones.
We do have cell phones but have gotten rid of all the peripheral services that we initially “needed”. We no longer have voice mail, caller i.d., call forwarding, internet access etc… and you know what? We don’t miss it. We were charged monthly for these services and we rarely used them. In our next round of barnacle detachments the cell phones will likely be cut.

13. Holidays.
We don’t go on winter vacations to “escape the cold” and summer vacations are spent either at my folks cottage or camping. We did a lot of travelling before we had kids and before our frugal ways really set in. By the time we were ready to leave Australia the travel bug had official died in both of us. A good thing I guess as travel can be expensive! (Airfare, hotel, transport, food, activities, souvenirs etc. it all adds up!)

14. Meal planning.
Doing our bi-weekly meal plan has saved us big time. We have almost no wastage and our pantry is no longer over stuffed with food items that we never use and only bought out of habit (onions and tins of soup, as examples).

15. Pick and choose financial institutions.
This one has likely made the biggest impact on our family financially. Don’t be afraid to use different financial institutions for their strengths. We have forgone simplicity in this case in order to save a significant amount of money. Think about your mortgage, savings, checking and investments and don’t be afraid to shop around.

16. Buy older model cars.
Cars that we buy are not brand new, they are older models with relatively few kilometers on them. For example, we bought a 2001 Toyota Corolla, which at the time was 5 years old. Where we live on average there’s about 20,000kms put on a car each year so after 5 years this Corolla should have in the vicinity of 100,000kms. The one we bought had 60,000kms basically a 3 year old car with a 5 year old price tag. Pretty good deal, right?

17. Buy in bulk.
Last year was the first year we bought meat direct from the farmer. This saved us a lot of money as we avoided the supermarkets and bought a lot of it at one go. Through meal planning this is lasting a long time and we’re not falling into the buy in bulk, eat in bulk, waste in bulk trap.

18. General purpose cleaner.
For cleaning our house we reduced our products down to one general purpose cleaner eliminating the more costly specialty cleaners. This saves us money from month to month and takes up a lot less room under the sink!

19. Work from home.
My husband used to work from home before he started at his most recent position. When he worked from home we were able to reduce the insurance on our car, we paid far less on gas, there were no parking fees and there was less wear and tear on the car.

20. Plant a veggie garden.
Not only is this a great relaxing hobby it’s a great way to be frugal. Growing your own vegetables is rewarding as they often taste better and can cost as little as a packet of seeds. Get your kids involved and teach them where their food comes from.

So there you have it, a few ways in which we have brought frugality into our lives. We’re always looking for new ideas on how we can be even more frugal!  If you have other suggestions or tips please feel free to post them in the comments.

Photo courtesy of: chefranden

See also:

From Wasteful to Frugal – Our Journey

A Simple and Effective Meal Plan In 3 Easy Steps

7 Money Saving Ideas From The Kitchen

5 Tips for a Quick and Efficient Grocery Shop