Learn How To Become Frugal.
As much as we’d like to pretend otherwise, being frugal just doesn’t come naturally to some people. I know it didn’t for me. In fact, it took me many, many years! Becoming frugal takes work if it’s not a lifestyle that you grew up in. It isn’t something that can be done overnight, it’s a process. It also isn’t something that you set up once and then walk away from. With that being said, frugality is a skill that can be learned if you’re willing. If you’re one of those people that wasn’t raised frugal or frugality just doesn’t come naturally, take heart because there are a few things you can do to help yourself learn how to be frugal. You wouldn’t be here reading this article if you didn’t want to learn more about frugal living!
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Learn How To Be Frugal
1. To start, you’ll need to get your mind in the right place.
You can’t do a complete lifestyle change, and living frugally is a new lifestyle, without taking a bit of time to re-center your mind. To help, think of why you want to save money, how living a frugal lifestyle will help your family, what a great example you’ll be to your kids, maybe you want to stay home with your kids, or retire early, and so on. You’ll need to draw on those thoughts when frugality really becomes hard for you. It takes time to phase out expenses and you don’t want your family to rebel and feel resentful. So a gradually move into frugal living would be less stressful for all.
2. As you start your frugal living lifestyle, take it upon yourself to learn everything that you can.
Read your favorite frugal living and money saving blogs. Here’s my list of some of my favorite frugal living sites. Read books that will inspire you like the Millionaire Next Door or Miserly Moms: Living Well On Less In A Tough Economy. Join Facebook Groups like Dave Ramsey-Budgeting or The Non-Consumer Advocate so you can connect with like minded people. There are tons of podcasts that you can listen to as well. Listen to the Dave Ramsey show and get inspired by the success stories! The more you immerse yourself in frugality, the more inspired you’ll be to live a frugal lifestyle. Also, you’ll start to notice when you’re facing an opportunity to save versus spend.
3. Set yourself up for success by reducing temptation.
Many people freeze their credit cards in blocks of ice so they won’t be tempted by them. Some people stay out of the mall or Target and shop elsewhere if that’s their problem. Some people limit their time on Pinterest and Instagram if that’s what triggers their “I gotta have XYZ” and then overspend. Whatever it is for you, do what you need to do to limit temptation!
4. To stay motivated, chart and reward your success.
Give yourself a way to track how you’re doing on your frugal living journey. I have a whole post on different ways you can creatively motivate yourself. Everything from paper chains to chalkboards! We have some fun debt payoff trackers in the ACN shop and a free debt thermometer here. Celebrate when you reach a frugal goal (it doesn’t have to be something big – you can treat yourself to a Starbucks coffee or a new nail polish…you get the idea)
The biggest thing to remember though is that what you’re facing isn’t an insurmountable mountain. It’s just something that you’re new to and something that you must learn about, but you can absolutely do it. Hundreds of thousands of people do it all the time and you can too. When you’re discouraged or frustrated, step back from it all, take a nice hot bubble bath, go for a hike, splurge on a little treat or do whatever you like to do and just relax. Then start again.
If frugality doesn’t come naturally to you, you’ll be embarking on a journey like you’ve never seen before, but it is so worth it. At the end of your journey, you’ll be living well, within your means, and you’ll have less financial stress. You are building a future not only for your family now, but a legacy that your kids will pass to theirs and so on.
For the newly frugal, it’s easy to become overwhelmed, but if you allow yourself time to learn, time to dream and time to plan, you’ll be picking up frugal habits left and right before you know it!
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Steve and I have always lived below our means which is how we were both able to retire.
We always paid ourselves first, saved to pay cash for cars, pay our credit cards off monthly with no interest.
Now that we are retired, we find that we spend even less money. Neither of us need to spend much money on clothes, we eat smaller portions (our metabolism is so slow now that we are old) and stop and think twice about going to the grocery store. We try to use up what we have.
Being frugal definitely doesn’t come natural to us. One thing we’ve learned to do is definitely to reduce the temptation. Now we try and limit our casual shopping trips and if possible, not have the kids with us.