Are you Frugal or Just Cheap? 8 Benefits of Being FRUGAL starting today!

My Cheap Story

When I was a preteen, my family experienced a couple of years of financial difficulty which I believe was the beginning of my frugal creative journey.  I was the oldest of 4 siblings and the only girl.  I didn’t have any older sisters to give me their used clothes, so my hand-me-downs came from my aunts.  That meant they weren’t always the latest styles for my age group, but they were definitely quality clothes from some of the top brands.  I learned to appreciate what I received and made the absolute most of it all.

CHEAP, by definition (found at https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cheap July 2022), when referring to a person, means:

• stingy (reluctant to give or spend; not generous;) and
• miserly (a person who lives in wretched circumstances in order to save and hoard money)

That means you wouldn’t let go of a dime if your life depended on it.

FRUGAL is defined as (definition found at  https://www.dictionary.com/browse/frugal July 2022):

• avoiding waste or extravagance in use or expenditure;
• prudently saving or sparing;
• not wasteful

That really means you appreciate what you have and you don’t like throwing it away on things of little value.  You’re intentional with what you do with whatever resources you have – including money.

1. Reduced financial stress

   When you focus your attention on paying down debt or you eliminate those extra streaming services, making it easier to pay your utility bills, you won’t find yourself running from bill collector calls. Plus, imagine if you only had a handful of bills to pay each month.  You can cut those weekly bill-pay sessions in half because you no longer have to finagle and shuffle bills around.  Frugal living cuts out the fluff and creates a more straightforward process.

2. Easier to handle financial emergencies

   Frugal living will allow you to begin to build a money cushion so that when real, unexpected, unavoidable expenses arise, you have some money to help reduce the burden without using up all of your regular income that’s allotted to primary bills and expenses.

3. Improve your skills and learn new ones

   Let’s face it, when you live frugally, you will need to do more things yourself instead of hiring someone else to do them.  That means you will learn how to do new things and depending on how often you have to do them, you will be gaining some potentially marketable skills.  I learned how to braid my own hair out of a need to save money.  Getting your hair braided with extensions in a salon can cost anywhere from $100-$300.  But purchasing the braiding hair and installing the braids myself only cost me $20.  After years of braiding my own hair and getting good at it, other people started paying me to braid their hair for them as well.  So I was saving money AND making money utilizing the same skill.  Get it?

4. You can save money to pursue a dream or take a dream vacation

   Every dollar not spent on unnecessary items can be put aside to help pay for a return back to school to get that degree or can fund that vacation you’ve been putting off for the last 10 years. Now you can count the costs, make that plan, tighten your belt and make that dream come true!

5. No more trying to keep up with the Joneses

   Maybe you’re the kind of person that tends to spend money on things you don’t need and may not even care much about simply because someone else had it and looked at you funny because you didn’t. When you decide to live frugally, it’s because you’ve set your sights on a larger goal.  Keeping that goal in mind, you won’t feel the immense pressure from your peers to make that frivolous purchase.

6. Allows you to work a job you enjoy

   Many people are tied to their jobs – jobs they may not like - because they have spent themselves into a corner.  They may be longing to resign and find a job doing something they love but don’t feel they can afford to make the transition.  Perhaps the work they would love to do, doesn’t pay as much.  Deciding, or even considering beginning a frugal lifestyle allows for a reevaluation of what matters.  There’s always a way to reduce what you don’t need to make room for your greater desires.

7. Reduce waste and help the environment

   When you really dig in to living frugally, you will make the choice more and more to reuse or repurpose things instead of throwing them away so that you can save money.  Reusing certain items at least twice before throwing them away reduces waste and therefore, contributes to a reduction in air pollution.  Here are some household items you can repurpose to meet needs in other areas of your home:

   1. Soup cans, glass jars, plastic bottles and jugs from water, clothes detergent, juice and soda, – Reuse these for storing desk supplies or other small items, or use as planters or for plant watering
   2. Plastic mesh produce bags can be reused as scrubbers for dishes, tubs and sinks.
   3. Reuse shoe boxes to sort and store important items or even DIY an Easter basket for the kids instead of paying for the usual plastic versions.
   4. Find more ways to repurpose household items at https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/reuse-everything

8. It boosts your creativity

   This is my favorite of all the benefits of being frugal!  There’s saying that goes “Necessity is the mother of invention.” When living a frugal lifestyle, the key is to spend less money on the things you need and want.  Sometimes, you can’t spend any money on things that aren’t an absolute must.  But that’s where you have to get creative and come up with new ways of finding or creating the things you want and need.  You become an innovator!