Mastering Frugal Living

Mastering Frugal Living

In a world that always needs the next best thing, mastering frugal living is a skill that will carry you to financial freedom and help you from falling into the spending traps that are all around you.

Adopting a frugal lifestyle isn’t about depriving yourself - it’s about making intentional purchases and finding ways to save money where you can. 

In this article from Patriot Bank, you will learn about what frugal spending is, how to assess your financial situation, strategies to encourage you to spend mindfully, and how frugality can help you reach your goals. Whether you want to break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck or want to change your mindset towards money, living a frugal life could be your missing puzzle piece. 

Frugal Spending Doesn’t Mean “Being Cheap”

Often, being frugal and being cheap are mistaken for each other, when in fact they are very different. Someone that is cheap is focused on spending the least amount of money possible and they will sacrifice quality and value to do this. On the other hand, someone who is frugal wants the maximum value. They will wait for deals and search for reasonable prices but will not sacrifice quality and value. 

Being frugal is just being more intentional and smarter with your money. Living a frugal lifestyle will allow you to live a life with less stress, more financial freedom and enable you to reach your financial goals. 

Assessing Your Financial Situation 

The first step to mastering frugal living is assessing your current financial situation. Although this may seem scary, knowledge is power! You need to understand exactly where you stand to make decisions that will get you to where you want to be. You can assess your current financial situation by looking at your fixed expenses, variable expenses, savings, debts, and incoming money. This will show you what you have going in and out each month. From there, you will have a better idea of a budget that would work for you and your income. Once you establish a budget, make sure that you track your expenses so that you can stay on top of your spending and not fall off track.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some of our favorite tips on mastering frugal living:

• Meal planning and grocery shopping: You can cut back on your expenses surrounding groceries by planning your meals ahead of time and sticking to a grocery list so that your cart doesn’t get filled with everything that catches your eye. Another tip is to utilize coupons and seek out discounts. It is smart to buy what you can in bulk when it is on sale or from big box stores like Costco, BJs, or Sam’s Club.
• Energy bills: Energy bills can be a big expense for homeowners and renters. A few ways to cut back on this bill are turning off the water when you are brushing your teeth, turning off and unplugging appliances when they aren’t in use, only using your lights at night, and opening your windows instead of using AC when the temperature is conducive.
• Transportation: Another money pit is modes of transportation. It is smart to carpool or use public transportation when it’s available to you to save money on gas and parking. If you live in an area where you can do so, it’s great to walk or bike for shorter distances.
• Entertainment and leisure: Living a frugal life doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy entertainment and leisure activities. There are plenty of ways to still have fun while you are being smart with your money. There are a lot of enjoyable, free things to do like going to local museums, and art galleries, hiking, or going to the beach. You can also go see a movie when they have discount movie nights or pick up an inexpensive hobby.

Long-Term Goals

From the tips above, you can see that it is easy to incorporate frugal living into your current lifestyle. As long as you are intentional with how you are spending your money, you will continue to make smarter financial decisions. And these smart financial decisions will get you closer and closer to reaching any larger financial goals that you have for yourself like buying a car, a house, or saving for college. Saving money in small ways adds up in big ways too, such as allowing you to grow your emergency fund, save more for retirement, or invest in assets that will appreciate over time.

Frugal living can change the way you view material possessions, your mindset on money, and your financial outlook. Being intentional with your spending and focusing on things that you value will change you AND your bank account. The best way to start moving towards frugal living is to assess your financial situation and then begin implementing the tips that we discussed in this article. Each day you will get closer to being in a more secure financial position. You can do it!

Contact Patriot Bank or visit our convenient branches in Southern CT and Scarsdale, NY to learn about more ways to save. You can also use our Savings Goal Calculator to see how long it might take to reach a particular goal.