When you think of the word frugal, the first thing that comes to mind is money. Indeed most that practice frugal living do so through adjusting spending habits and becoming deeply aware of their finances. That is not to say that those that live frugally are misers or scrooges, just switched on to spending. But to truly embrace frugality, you need to look beyond your spending habits alone. By definition, being frugal is to be “economical in use or expenditure; prudently saving or sparing; not wasteful.” But this can be applied to much more than your efforts to find a bargain or live on a shoestring. Here are a selection of other ideas and practices to help embrace the frugal lifestyle.
Stop wasting time.
When it comes to being economical, you should start with your time. Every second has value, both in life and economically. Time is money as they say. Could you find ways to use yours more effectively? Here are some Ideas to get you started.
Take 10 – 15 minutes each night before you get ready for bed, and tidy up.
It’s amazing how much you can get done in this time. Taking this ‘idle’ time to tidy leaves you with less of a job to do on your days off, freeing up a bulk of time, be it a whole morning or just a couple of hours. If you take it as a challenge to see how much you can get done, you will also find it is far more productive time than leaving it for your day off where you will be more likely to wind down and take your time over it. This is frugal tidying.
Be aware of the time you spend online.
Do you really need to check your e-mail every hour, or comment on every Facebook post that pops up? The internet is a great resource but it is also a vacuum for wasted time. One interesting video or article often leads to another, and another and before you know it that’s another evening wasted. Limit your exposure, those articles and videos and profiles will all be there tomorrow. If you set a limit you will use the time you have productively and with value, less likely to squander and procrastinate.
Frugality In The Home
Taking note of the definition of frugal in the first paragraph again, there are lots of things we can do around the home to be economical and less wasteful of time, money and resources. Here are a few and - perhaps at times ‘quirky’ tips, how many more can you think of?
Reuse water.
By this, I don’t mean washing your dishes then using that water to brush your teeth, which would just be a touch on the unhealthy side. But what about the water you boiled your potatoes or veggies in, could you use that to also wash your dishes? Saves money and energy you would need to heat the additional water, and wastes less water.
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For your morning rituals, why not brush your teeth and shave whilst conditioning or washing hair in the shower. This slashes the time you need to prepare yourself for the day, freeing up time for other things. You might want to wait until your dried and dressed for breakfast though.
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Composting and recycling. Take the time to sort your waste and you can benefit in return. Not only are you doing your bit for the environment, but using your organic waste for composting also provides you with some great feed for the garden, and it’s free.
These might all seem like trivial things, but they go to prove the point, that frugality is not all about money, it is about resourcefulness, becoming less wasteful. It is a practice that becomes a lifestyle.
Know The Value Of Your Time
To emphasise why frugality is not all about saving money, I want to show a point here about why frugality of time can be more important and resourceful than money centric frugality. Take this little exercise for example, and calculate your hourly income after taxes, and compare your time spent to that dollar value. If your hourly salary after tax is for example $10 and you are queuing for 30 minutes to make a $3 saving on a purchase, then it’s not economically worth it. Your time spent waiting is of more value than the saving. You might have a petrol station that is 5 cents cheaper than the rest but the queues are always long as a result nullifying any saving you would make waiting for the pump.
Time will always be infinitely more valuable than money. It is the one resource that we cannot replace or increase, rich or poor. There is no going back no matter how many times lightning strikes the clock tower, and there are absolutely no refunds. To truly embrace frugality, we must look beyond money to put time at the core.
