The Best Frugal Habit

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This month’s posts have all focused on frugality, with this post giving you the simplest and best frugal habit. As a teacher, a frugal life is kind of a necessity, especially early in my career making less than $30,000. However, frugality is actually a great finance growing skill that is often forgotten. Frugality allows you to assess what you really need vs. what you want, as does minimalism. Frugality is a form of delayed gratification, as are most wealth growing methods. You have to take a risk, make a change, or a choice that might not be popular to reap the rewards later.

These rewards might be a robust retirement, family vacation, a year off, or the means to travel the world. Frugality is for everyone, and even the rich do it because frugality is all about making a higher profit for less amounts of work. Smart! So stop hiding or feeling ashamed when you’ve had to save money for your family. It’s a needed skill that will leave you with wealth building habits for your future.

Frugality and Family

I like to think of my family like a business. It wasn’t until I became a mother that I took my CEO of the family title into hyper drive. I constantly think how we can spend the most time doing the things we love, with the least amount of effort. It’s why we visit the beach more often, I try to swim once a week, and we save for flights to Minnesota for longs stays with family. Not all activities are expensive, but all bring me much joy. This is where frugality and minimalism play a huge role. If you are frugal and only spend money on things and activities that bring you the most joy you won’t have to work as much. You won’t be constantly working longer hours to get more things.

Believe me, my husband and I for the last couple years have both worked two jobs, sometimes 3 if you count full-time childcare to make ends meet, pay off debt, and provide for our family. We know what it feels like to work endless hours even on weekends.

Turns out, it’s not that fun. We don’t wish this for anyone, but it was necessary to see an easier path, and during this journey we honed our frugality skills. Now, we can live on a smaller income, still have money for trips to the beach, flights to visit family, and just time to spend with each other. We’re by no means rich, but recently we’ve become rich(er) in time. The most time we’ve ever had to spend as a family.

The Best Frugal Habit

Frugal habits will have to be utilized weekly, specifically when you enter stores. I love Target, but I was a chronic over spender in that store. Swimsuits? It’s winter, but hell yah! Cute pencils and stationary? Yes! A new planner with calligraphy handwriting? Put it in the cart!

It wasn’t until I went through all the stuff in my home that I realized I hardly ever used the items I impulse bought. Impulse buying is not a frugal habit. An impulse buy is anything you buy in the moment, typically in a brightly lit engaging store like Target.

What do you do to combat this?

BRING A LIST. That’s it.

You’re welcome.

Bringing a list and sticking to this list will help you stop buying frivolous items that only bring you joy in the trance of the brightly colored packaging, lyrical background music, and happy fellow customers.

This habit alone will help you maintain the amount of stuff entering your home. It will not only save you money it will save you time. When I first went through my closet I had about 10 swimsuits. How many of those swimsuits did I actually wear? 3. Simplicity is time. Time that you can spend with your family instead of hustling longer hours to pay for more stuff. If interested in any other lists of things I don’t buy check out any of these posts: clothing, toddler stuff, foods, and household products.

Final Thoughts

Frugality isn’t just for the middle class, or for people with a teacher’s salary. Frugality is utilized in businesses, always. It’s a way to maximize your profits with little extra effort. Consider incorporating just bringing a list to the store to squelch your impulse buys, save money for your family, reduce waste for the environment, and save time. If interested in saving $1000 each month with frugal habits check out this blog post as well.

Join the Discussion

What frugal habits do you utilize weekly? What is in your opinion the best frugal habit?

P.S. I always ask readers to follow me on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. I consciously try to document my everyday simple life. Since we happen to be on a debt free journey it can be motivating because most of my activities are intentionally inexpensive. However, if you’re trying to cut out social media, you’ll need to subscribe directly to this blog.

Author

-Maria Halcumb
B.A. in Secondary Education, English, and Physical Education
M.A. Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction and Reading Specialist