The Best Frugal Living Tips You Should Implement Now

I am going to be completely honest with you…

When I first heard about frugality and minimalism, I thought it was just about penny-pinching and living like a hermit crab.

Yes, I was completely wrong!

Minimalism and frugality don’t mean deprivation as many people think, it means living a fulfilled life on less and realizing more stuff doesn’t equate to happiness.

I have asked some awesome frugal living bloggers to share their best frugal living tips with you and here is what they had to say…

Also, stick around to the end to get some awesome bonus frugal living tips to save even more money easily!

The Frugal Fellow

Don’t use credit cards to spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need. Emergencies happen, but using credit cards day-to-day can be disastrous if you don’t pay them off.

Americans spend billions on credit card interest alone every year, so this is a huge expense.

-Bob, The Frugal Fellow

Frugal Chic Life

Multi-purpose your items. One of my favorite frugal living tips is to multi-purpose items whenever possible. Instead of buying a separate product for each task, I multi-purpose products like Dr. Bronner’s Castille soap.

This product can be used for dishwashing liquid, shampoo, face wash, hand soap, surface cleaner, shave gel, and cleaning makeup brushes. I not only save money but I save space and have less clutter in my bathroom and kitchen cabinets.

-Nicole, Frugal Chic Life

Thrifty Frugal Mom

The cost of meat can quickly make it hard to keep a frugal grocery budget. To combat that and help make our $225/mo grocery budget work for our family of 6, we make it a point to eat at least one meatless dinner each week. These 30 easy meatless meals are some of our favorites!

-Lydia, Thrifty Frugal Mom

The Frugal Free Gal

Make your own cleaning products! Baking soda and vinegar can be used to clean just about anything. We recently eliminated several cleaning products under our sink and replaced them with two cleaning ingredients! Saves money AND space.

-Brittany, The Free Frugal Gal

Mad Money Monster

I’d have to say my best tip for a frugal life is to always pursue a less expensive option that won’t compromise on quality. On the flip side, spend money only on things that are very important to you.

I’ve learned that extreme frugality can feel like deprivation. And when we feel deprived, that can pretty quickly lead to unhappiness and work against our long-term financial goals.

-Lisa, Mad Money Monster

Frugal Rules

One of our favorite frugal living tips is to use a rewards credit card for all your purchases…assuming you have your spending in control, of course. We take thousands of dollars worth of vacations each year, all thanks to our normal spending.

This saves us money we can apply towards other areas of our budget. The purchase protection you receive from credit cards isn’t too bad of a benefit either.

-John, Frugal Rules

Femme Frugality

My best frugal living tip is to budget liberally and spend conservatively. That way, you’re less likely to run out of money at the end of the month because of both good planning and frugality on the “spend conservatively” side.

-Brynne, Femme Frugality

Much More With Less

My top money-saving tip is to keep a spending diary and write down every single thing you spend. That way, you can see exactly where your money disappears, and identify where to make changes. Even knowing I’m going to record my spending can make me think twice at the checkout.

My spending diary definitely helps me spend less, live a more minimalistic lifestyle, and look around for activities that don’t cost a penny.

-Faith, Much More With Less

The Frugal Girls

My advice would be to not think about how much money you’ll save at the end of each month. Instead… plan to save it all, and think about how little you can spend. This simple idea to reframe your thinking about money can really help you supercharge your savings.

-Heidi, The Frugal Girls

I Heart Frugal

My favorite way to save money is to use meal planning. Since you know what you are eating you are less likely to spend money on dining out or ordering in. Not to mention, you eliminate daily trips to the store where you will inevitably add extra items to your cart and go over budget.

Also, meal planning helps avoid food waste because you can plan for leftovers. Meal planning is essential to saving money and living a more minimalist lifestyle

-Sarah, I Heart Frugal

She Picks Up Pennies

Only buy what you’ll need, use, and enjoy. Too often, people look to be frugal by purchasing the cheapest things to score a deal. But it’s a duplicate of what they already have or something that they actually have no use for.

If it costs money–no matter how little–and takes up time and space, it isn’t a deal!

-Penny, She Picks Up Pennies

I Pick Up Pennies

My advice would be: Remember that it’s not really “savings” until you actually save it. As you cut down expenses, be sure to put that money away so that the funds are actually saved.

Put the money into your emergency fund, your savings account, retirement, against your mortgage — anywhere as long as you can actually point to where the savings are going and they don’t disappear into the ether of general spending.

-Abigail, I Pick Up Pennies

From Pennies To Plenty

The best frugal living tip I’ve received is to spend on what you prioritize most and cut back on all the rest. If you love to travel, prioritize saving for your trips. Trim your spending in other areas that don’t matter as much to you. Then enjoy yourself without guilt when you’re on your travels.

-Arlene, From Pennies To Plenty

Frugal Millennial

Be intentional with your spending. Only buy something if you believe it will add value to your life. Don’t buy it just because it’s a “good deal” or it’s on sale. Remember that everything is 100% off when you don’t buy it.

-Jen, Frugal Millennial

Deliberately Here

Meal planning. By simply taking half an hour out of your day to plan meals for the week you can save hundreds of dollars on groceries every month. When you meal plan you can cut your grocery shopping down to one trip a week, one every two weeks, or once a month, which immediately eliminates unnecessary spending.

Meal planning allows you to know exactly what you’ll be eating for a set amount of time, which allows you to buy only the groceries you need, rather than buying stuff “just in case you need it”. My husband and I have been able to cut our grocery spending by $700 each month with meal planning.

-Amy, Deliberately Here

Bonus Best Frugal Living Tips

Those were some amazing frugal living tips from awesome bloggers that will help you save a lot of money! In this section, I will give you some more frugal living tips to help you live a more minimal life to save money without depriving yourself!

Cash-Back Apps

Listen, we all have to buy things at times, it’s just the way life goes but you don’t have to pay full price for anything!

I recommend using free cash-back programs like Dosh and Rakuten to save money on all your purchases.

Dosh works by simply linking your credit/debit cards and giving you cash-back automatically! Plus you get $5 when signing up with my link!

Rakuten makes saving money when shopping online a breeze! They also offer in-store savings too. You can even get $10 when signing up with my link!

72 Hour Rule

One of the best frugal living tips you can implement in your life is the 72-hour rule! 

Impulse purchases can cause you to spend money on things you don’t need or things you don’t really want. Brands use many different marketing tactics to make it seem like you “need” this item or that you are “missing out” if you don’t purchase it but don’t fall for it.

If you need something then you would know if you need it but if you think you want something then you should wait for 72-hours before purchasing the item.

This simple trick is used to overcome your impulsive nature (we all have it) and use logic when purchasing something.  Most of the time you will not want the item anymore, saving you money!

Save Money On Groceries

I love that many frugal living bloggers listed their best frugal living tip as meal planning. It really is a great way to save money on food, which as you know can drain your pockets really fast!

You can also save even more money on food by using ibotta, which is my favorite app to save money on food!

ibotta has helped many people save $1,000’s on food, yes $1,000’s! All you have to do is sign up to ibotta here and start saving money easily!

Purchase In Hours

One of the best frugal living tips is to purchase items in hours instead of money. For example, if an item costs $100 and you make $20 an hour, decide if this item is worth 5 hours of your life.

It might or might not be worth it but by purchasing in hours you are more likely to spend cautiously because you are now trading time instead of money!

So, the next time you are thinking about buying something, calculate how many hours of your life you are trading for this item and then decide if it is worth it or not.

Switch Cell Phone Plan

A simple way to cut costs is to switch to a cheaper cellphone plan if you don’t use mobile data frequently.

With a provider like Republic Wireless, you can get unlimited call & text for $15 a month and then $5 a month for every GB of data you use! This is pretty cheap if you are constantly on WiFi and don’t need a lot of mobile bandwidth.

So, if you want to save money on your cellphone bill then definitely check out Republic Wireless.

Use Your Local Library

A great way to save money and still have some entertainment outside of your home is to head to your local library where you can find books to read, movies to watch, computer access, and even some classes to take.

It’s a great and cheap way to live a frugal life and still have some entertainment!

So, head over to your local library or check out their website to see what they offer.

Cut Cable

With all the streaming services out there, many people are resorting to cutting cable for cheaper alternatives and they are not looking back!

A simple way to cut cable and keep all your favorite shows and sports is to sign up for Sling TV.

Sling TV has different plans you can purchase so you can ensure that you are only paying for what you will use!

Track Your Spending

As you can tell by this list, there are many ways to cut costs but before you cut costs you need to know where you can cut costs.

This is why you should track your spending so you can see where you are spending money and where you can save money.

I recommend using Mint which is an app that tracks your spending for you automatically. All you have to do is link your bank accounts and Mint does the categorization and analysis for you. 

However, if you get paid in cash then you will manually have to enter this in the Mint app.

You can also opt for the trusty old Excel spreadsheet which never fails.

Use Trim

Automated payments make life so much easier but they can end up costing you a lot of money also! How?

Well, with all the subscription services out there, chances are that you are still paying for some that you don’t even use anymore.

This is where Trim comes in, Trim analyzes your spending and finds subscriptions you are paying for, and brings it to your attention, you can then easily cancel these subscriptions if you don’t want them anymore.

Also, for subscriptions and services you want to keep, Trim will work on your behalf to negotiate a lower price if possible!

Trim is a truly amazing service that you can use for FREE!

Use A High Yield Savings Account

While this might not be a frugal living tip per se, it is a simple financial tip that you can implement right away.

This tip is to switch to a high-yield savings account if you haven’t done so already!

If you have a savings account with a large bank like Chase or Citi Bank you will earn somewhere around 0.01% to 0.05% in interest.

But…

If you choose to bank with an online bank like CIT Bank you will be able to earn more than 2% in interest!

Let’s put this into real numbers:

If you have $5,000 saved at one of the big banks at 0.05%, you will earn $2.50 in interest. Not good at all!

Banking with an online bank like CIT Bank or Ally Bank where you can get around 2% in interest, that $5,000 saved will earn you $100 in interest! Now that’s much better!

Now, of course, you won’t have physical branches to go to if you choose to go with an online bank but if it is something you can live with, online banking is the way to go!

Check out CIT Bank here!

Buy Reusable Objects

A really simple way to cut spending is to focus on spending your money on reusable items such as water bottles, dryer balls, washable cloths, reusable coffee filters, etc…

By reusing items you will save money and you will reduce the amount of waste you produce. I call that a Win-Win!

Cut Spending On Certain Things

One of the best frugal living tips ever is to simply stop buying certain items!

There are a few items like lottery tickets, cigarettes, name-brand medicine, etc… that you should just stop buying to save a lot of money in the long run!

You can find an extensive list of things you should stop buying to save money here.

Price Protection

Don’t you just hate it when you purchase an item and a few days later it’s selling at a discounted price?

This can suck but there are ways you can get paid the difference if there are price protection policies in place!

Certain stores and credit cards have price protection policies that allow you to get paid the difference for certain products if the price drops in a certain time period.

Now it can be a real pain to go through all the fine print from every store you shop at and every credit card you use but there is an app that can do this for you for free and automatically!

This app is called Earny and it is an amazing app!

Earny scans your receipts and credit cards and looks for ways to get you cash-back through various price protection policies!

Update: Unfortunately Earny is not completely free anymore. Earny does have a free version still but to unlock Earny’s full potential it will cost $3.33 if paid yearly or $4.99 if paid monthly.

The good news is that there is a similar app to Earny that is completely free, it’s called Paribus and I recommend checking it out!

Save Money On Utilities

Honestly, the best frugal living tips involve cutting down on the use of utilities so you can save money and also help save our planet by preserving precious resources!

Simple things like turning off lights when you are not using them, turning off the water when you are brushing your teeth, taking shorter showers, and using energy-efficient appliances can help you save a lot of money in the long run.

There are many tips to save money on utilities, which you can find here.

Save Money On Pets

If you have pets then you know they can pretty expensive (some more than others) but there are some pretty simple ways to save money on pets!

Some pretty simple tips are to shop online for food and medication, set up a pet fund, make DIY pet toys, etc…

Downsize Home

One of the best frugal living tips that will save you the most money is to downsize your home!

Now obviously this isn’t a simple thing to do. It takes planning and commitment to do this but if you do, you can save a lot of money!

The fact is that most Americans don’t use all the living space their house has!

So, if you are up for it, consider downsizing your home to save money.

You can even take it a step further and live in an RV!

Conclusion

By implementing these frugal living tips in your life you will save more money and you will be more financially prepared than you were before!

As you can see from the tips provided by the many amazing frugal bloggers on this list, there are simple changes you can make in your life that will allow you to save money and live a fulfilled life with less stuff.

If you are looking for some other awesome ways to save money, I recommend checking out my posts on ways to save money each month and 42 Money Saving Hacks To Save Money Easily.

What is your favorite frugal living tip? Is there a tip that you use or are considering using? Let me know in the comments below!