How to Save for the Newly Frugal

How to Save for the Newly Frugal – Starting frugal living doesn’t have to be impossible. In fact, you can start living frugally with these easy tips and tricks to get you thinking frugally in no time.

One of the most daunting experiences I had was when I looked at my bank statement and realized that there was nothing, but there were still bills to pay. We were living paycheck-to-paycheck and the income from my husband just very low. And there we were with a stack of bills to pay and $0.57 in our bank account.

We decided to try to take a hacksaw to our current budget and not just trim back, but completely eliminate huge chunks of our budget. Everything that wasn’t a need got eliminated.

Well, that didn’t work.

We looked at our budgeting like a diet. Oh, you messed up once and ate a cookie. Screw the diet, gimme that box of doughnuts!

Once you mess up, it goes out the window and you start making up for the lost time on things you didn’t buy.

The number one thing I wish that someone had told me when I was newly frugal was to start small and build up. I mean it! This isn’t a diet, it’s a lifestyle change. It takes time to build up to it, but it’s much more permanent and it becomes second nature.

The top 6 ways to learn how to save for the newly frugal:

1. Set aside fun money!

Life is short – buy that doughnut! Yup, I said it. Not every day, but if you had an awful day and are hankering for a sugary treat, get yourself the doughnut.

That is what “fun money” is for. I have $25/ week in my budget for fun money. That’s the money that I can use to spend however I want. It’s already worked into the budget so I’m not taking money away from important things like groceries or bills.

You can decide what works best for you, but I really love my $25/week. It lets me go out for lunch or coffee once a week if I want and it also lets me save up quickly for purchases that I really want (I’ve got my eye on a new purse).

Whatever you decide, make sure to set aside money for fun! This is the key to success for any budget!

Related post: 11 Expenses to Stop Spending Money On

2. Look at your bank statements and see where you spend your money.

This is the painful and boring part of how to save for the newly frugal. I know. And I’m sorry.

BUT! All you need to do to start is to see where you spent money. Print out your bank statement, break out the highlighters, and put every expense into a category. Gas, credit card payments, utilities, mortgage/ rent, other bills, take out, groceries, coffee, lunches at work… everything that you spend money on, give it a color.

In the end, you will see which category you spend the most money on. That is the category to start to cut back on.

If you went to take out 15 times last month, get it down to once a week this month. Maybe you went to Home Goods 10 times last month, get it down to once a week. If you get a coffee every morning, try to make it at home this month.

Where ever it is that you spend the most money, cut it back this month. Don’t get rid of it! Just cut it back. Then at the end of the month, go through your bank statement and color code it again. You’ll see a difference in the frequency of your spending, but also if the amount of money that you have at the end of the month.

3. Check out money saving ideas on Pinterest.

I love Pinterest! You can find so many amazing ideas for ways to save money on Pinterest, and most of them are really great.

Don’t get overwhelmed and start dressing your family in potato sacks and shopping around for tiny houses! Start small. What do you struggle with the most? Where do you spend the most money and needs ways to cut back?

Pinterest is a fantastic resource for that. Plus, you can find resources for how to DIY almost anything that will save you money. I found my laundry detergent recipe from Pinterest 4 years ago, and now I spend $30/year on laundry detergent for my family of five.

4. Analyze your daily and weekly routines.

Little things every day can really make a huge difference. If you spend $4 on coffee each day on the way to drop the kids off at school, that’s $80/month. Compare that with the price of making your own coffee at about $0.20 per cup, making it $4 per month.

Coffee is life, so I’d never tell you to quit cold turkey. But making coffee at home is an incredibly frugal way to save money while still getting the lifeblood that is coffee.

Maybe you don’t get coffee every day, but you get breakfast. Maybe it’s lunch. Whatever it is, what is your one daily habit that you always find yourself justifying by saying “it’s only $2.”

Once you know what your bad habit is, cut it out and put the money that you would have spent directly into a savings account (or a piggy bank!) and watch that money add up every day. That little change can easily add up to more than $1,000/ year!

Related post: How to Make Saving Money Easy

5. Celebrate the wins.

When you are new to saving money, being frugal can sometimes be a drag. It’s a mindset shift that might just seem impossible at first.

That’s why you need to throw yourself a little party when you do something great! And by “party,” I mean “go get yourself a venti mocha coconut frappuccino and enjoy yourself.”

When you meet your savings goals, go ahead and celebrate. Set an incentive for yourself to reach your goals.

Saved $100 = treat yo’self coffee date.
Got out of debt = ritualistic burning of credit cards accompanied by a call to Dave Ramsey to be on his radio show.
Built emergency fund = date night with a Groupon deal.

Setting incentives for yourself might be the most helpful thing that you can do when you’re newly frugal. Make the incentives fun and worth it, but not enough to derail your efforts of frugality.

Don’t make your goal for saving your first $100 to go out and buy a new coach bag. That might be just a bit counter productive. 🙂

Related post: The 3 Rules to Paying Off Debt Fast

6. Plan to take one more step each day/week/month/year.

In learning how to save money for the newly frugal, you might not want to shoot for the stars right out of the gate.

If you’ve never saved $1 in your life, saying that your goal for this month is to save $1,000 might be a little tough and it might just lead to you throwing in the towel. Don’t quit just because your goal was too tough.

Instead, make your goals doable! You can make them tough, but not impossible. Instead of wanting to save $1,000 this month, maybe shoot for just $100 this month.

If you’re starting at $0, $100 is 100 times the amount that you started with. That’s huge!

Make your daily goals.

Little changes that you can make every day that add up. Like making your own coffee or lunch. That adds up and it’s something that is very doable in a short period of time.

Make weekly goals.

You can say that this week, I will only make one trip to the gas station instead of 2. Or that you will only go to the grocery store once. These are goals that will require more work but are still completely doable

Make monthly goals.

Your goals each month should reflect the goals you have each day and week. Like staying on-budget for your groceries this month or putting all of the money that you would have spent on coffee into a savings account.

And make yearly goals.

These will be the big ones. But don’t let them scare you! Your yearly goals should be what you are working toward.

If you’ like to be debt free, make your yearly goal to be paying off a credit card. Maybe you’d like to stop overspending on groceries. Make your goal to get into the habit of meal planning and cooking great food at home (this is what I use and I can’t get enough of it).