Frugal Living Tips

If you’re trying to dig your way out of a mountain of debt, or perhaps even just keep yourself from getting buried by one in the first place, these frugal living tips will help you keep perspective on what’s important. Sometimes it seems hard to do in a culture centered on consumption, but all it takes is getting the right perspective on what’s important.

1. Stop eating out. This is perhaps the most important of the frugal living tips. It is immensely beneficial not only for your budget but for your health as well.  Most restaurant foods are laden with fat and sodium, and it’s not just the fast food places, either.  In fact, you’re likely to take in less calories eating fast food than eating in a sit-down restaurant due to the smaller portions. What’s more, restaurants don’t make money selling you food at cost. There is a huge markup, and a meal that might cost you five dollars to make at home can end up costing five times that at a restaurant. Eating all your meals at home can save you hundreds of dollars a year or more depending on how often you eat out now.
2. Cut your cable. Sure you have a big-screen LCD TV and you want to see all your shows in crisp, clean HD. That extended cable package is going setting you back a mint, though, and that isn't part of frugal living. Guess what? With an Internet connection, you don’t need that expensive cable package anymore.  You’ve got options like Netflix, Hulu and Youtube to occupy your oculars.
3. Downgrade your cell phone. Sure, it may be fun to update Facebook from your iPhone, but the data plan for that thing is costing you $30 a month. If you’re reading these frugal living tips on a cell phone screen and it’s not subsidized by your employer, you’re paying too much to do so. When your contract is up, find yourself a cheaper phone and say “no thanks” to the data plan.
4. Unplug any other phones. Do you still have a land line? This is the 21st century!  Maybe the phone or cable company sold you on it by including it in a discount bundle, but when the special pricing on that bundle runs out you’re going to be paying through the nose for a phone line you don’t need. It won't help you meet your frugal living goal. Take our advice and ditch that phone.
5. Pay off your credit cards, then cut them up. It sure is easy to charge things to a credit card. Just swipe and sign and everything else happens behind the scenes. You’re paying some big money for that convenience, though. Every time you don’t pay that credit card bill in full, you’re paying interest to the bank.  Keep putting off payment and you’ll keep paying more interest. Before you know it, you’re reaching your credit limit and only able to make the minimum monthly payment. That’s not a good situation to be in. Keep this in mind out of all of these frugal living tips: pay cash.