30 Frugal Tips that Help You Spend Less and Save More Each Month

You may have heard people talk about small things as being pointless, useless. Don't worry about saving small amounts of money. It's not worth it in the long run, but when you really think about it, it's those things that add up to large amounts. I mean, you take an example of if you worked one or two hours a week, sure, that's not a lot of money, but if you work 40 hours a week, it adds up to more. If you do one or two things, sure, does it add up to a lot? But if you do little things that save money in many categories, it adds up to more. The thing about when you do small things, it puts you in a mindset of seeing the little things as important. When you see the little things as important, you start to see the big things as even more important. So in this video, I wanted to put together a list of 30 micro money saving tips that will help you save more money each month. So let's get started. Number one is about the small amounts called keeping the change. Now, I do this in a specific way, but you can also do this through some bank programs. Bank programs will have things called keep the change, where if you use your bank card and let's say you spend $9 and 4 cents, it will then put 96 cents in your account. So it will round up, it will put 96 cents in your savings account. Now if you spent $9.96, it would put 4 cents in your account, but you can see over time that that can actually really save money without you even feeling it, which is great for automatic ways to save money. For me, I do this within my budgeting app. So in my budgeting app, I will track my expenses, but I never worry about putting the exact amount in there. So I'll put, let's say the charge is $9 and 4 cents. Again, I'll put that I spent $10. Let's say it's $15 and 46 cents. I'll put that I spent $16. What this does is over time, it again, saves money without you even feeling it or thinking about it because it puts that extra money in your account. It leaves it there. It acts as if you already spent it. Number two is before you buy something, imagine how many hours you will have to spend working in order to buy that thing. So let's say we're going to use round numbers here. Let's say you make $15 an hour. We're just using small amounts, okay? You can use your amounts however you want. $15 let's say take taxes out. You were left with $10 an hour that you bring home. So you bring home $10 an hour and you're out looking at a $40 pair of shoes. You're going to think, it's going to take me four hours of work to buy that pair of shoes that I don't need the shoes, but I want the shoes. So is that pair of shoes worth four hours of work? You can see how this small tip, this small thing about thinking about something can help you save a lot of money in the long run. Number three is to keep your electronics longer instead of upgrading. There is always, I'm sure you've seen this every single year. There's a brand new one that comes out. It's going to be drastically better. It's going to be all this 5g it's going to go at warp speed and be able to clean your house for you. That's the next thing, right? The cell phones are going to be able to do that. They attract the dust to themselves. I don't know. There's all these commercials about how improved cell phones are or any other electronics, a smartwatch, whatever. It's just not necessary. They aren't that much more improved. So it just start being comfortable with the electronics you have. If they are working, they're not completely dinosaur. They still, you know, you get the updates on them and they can still take the updates. That's another trick they're doing. I knew somebody who had a very old iPhone and eventually the updates no longer worked for the very old iPhone. So they had to upgrade the iPhone. They get you one way or the other. Number four, you're going to write down everything you spend. This is a small thing to do. And again, you can do it within a budgeting app. But here's the thing about writing down everything that you spend. It's kind of like when you're trying to track and like have a weight loss, you're, you're like, I'm getting a little unhealthy. I need to see what I'm eating and I'm going to start tracking what I'm eating or you do that because you've got an allergy to something. You're trying to figure out what it is. Well, if you think twice before you go and have a donut or a chocolate bar because, Oh no, I'm going to have to write that down and I'm going to have to look at that later. Or maybe even my doctor or somebody else is going to have to see that and they're going to say, what happened? You ate the sugar you weren't supposed to. It makes you think twice when you have to be held accountable for it. So the same kind of psychological idea happens when you have to write down what you're spending. It makes you think twice before you spend it. Number five, really quickly. Anytime you sign up for an app, some sort of program, cancel it right after you sign up. So especially for annual fees ones. Okay. So there are some apps or things, programs that you might sign up for that you have to pay or you get a great discount because you're going to pay for a year. So let's say it's $15 a month. If you pay monthly or it's $10 a month, you pay $120 upfront. You save $5 a month, $60 over the year. I think that math works out. Basically you're going to be able to get that. Go ahead and sign up, get that discount. But the first thing you're going to do after you sign up is go in and cancel. Hit do not renew because the odds of you remembering in one year that that $120 is going to come back out again or probably go up at that time and they send you an email, but somehow it goes to your spam box and you have no idea. And that amount just puts your budget way out of whack or high. This happens to many people, especially when you pay for the things yearly up front. So you can always keep that thing in at the next year if you're still using it. But a lot of times people's lives changed the program or whatever it was that they decided they wanted to use, whether it's photo editing software, a fitness app, you name it, no longer applies to their lifestyle. And this way you don't hit, get hit with that ugly charge and you don't have to continue to remind yourself that it's coming up and that you need to spend some time canceling it. Do it right away. Number six is to avoid food waste by not buying more groceries than you need to eat when you go grocery shopping. Meaning if you go grocery shopping two to three days every two to three days, if you go grocery shopping once a week, if you go grocery shopping more than once a month, don't buy more food than you can eat within that time because you're going to inevitably inevitably be wasting it. Don't go hungry because you're going to buy more. Think strategically about what you need to make for the week, which helps cut down on those costs. Number seven is to diligently review your bank account statements, your credit card statements, whether you do this online, whether you do this once a month, whether you do this weekly or you do this daily. I do this pretty much daily. Sometimes it'll go where it's weekend and I might not do nothing transactionally wise or the statements don't roll over or anything on the weekend and I wait till Monday and I'll check it. But diligently reviewing these, just see for fraud charges to make sure the person charged you the correct amount to make sure your bank account is not getting ready to go over. This is a small thing that can take you two to three minutes to go through your accounts and verify that everything looks right. Number eight is to review your grocery stores weekly circular before going to that store. See what the sales are, but know ahead of time prepare before you go in so you can say, you know, I really was going to get some strawberries and some grapes this week. They sound delicious. Oh, bananas and apples are on sale. We'll switch it up this time. Be able to do this, whether you should absolutely write a list. Okay, that's my another tip, side tip there. But looking at that weekly circular, there might be things that you can stock up on that you can put in the freezer that are shelf stable that are on sale that you need to make room for in your budget on your list. Number nine is to learn the sentence no for yourself and for others. And I say sentence because some people don't understand that the word no has a period at the end when I say it, you know, even kids, they start off this way, but then adults are like, well, why not? You sure? You can totally go out Friday night with us. Come on. What are you, what else are you going to be doing? Reading a book, going to bed early? Sure. I am. So no, thank you. Saying also no to yourself. You know, when we are children, our parents help guide us and hopefully if everything goes well, they're guiding us in good decision making. No, you can't have ice cream for breakfast or ice cream before you eat your dinner. But as an adult, you're like, yeah, totally going to have ice cream for breakfast. What are you going to do about it? Going to have a little piece of pizza afterwards who said pizza wasn't for breakfast. But is that good for you? No, not really. Especially if you do it on repeat. So sometimes you have to parent yourself by saying no to yourself, which is a simple micro word, two letters, which is a full sentence. Number 10. If you have a problem with a store or a problem with an online website and by problem, I mean you cannot help but get something every time you go in there or every time you look at it, you're like, I have to have this thing put in cart, click buy. It's probably a good idea to avoid it. Just avoid it. Simple, super simple. Avoid it. Don't walk through the door. Don't click on the website. Number 11 is to shop at discount grocery stores. There was an article. I can't find it. I have no idea where it is, but it talked about, and I don't understand how people know this, but they talked about how higher income earners are now going to discount grocery stores. How do they know how much you make when you go and you check out at the grocery store? Does that seem like a logically you're going to be able to, yep, you're going to run my card and you're going to be able to find out my annual salary. I don't know how they figured this out, but let's just assume they know and they figured out that even people who have higher incomes are going to discount grocery stores because prices are starting to affect them as well. Let's just assume so. Any way you chew it, discount grocery stores are fantastic for everybody. I think you should always try to save money. Why waste it when you can save some money? But maybe that's just me and how I am on this channel. But if you go to places like Aldi, that's one of my favorite discount grocery stores. Uh, you could go to Walmart. That's a nightmare in itself because it's so big and it really irritates me. There's so many people. You save money, but it's, it's, it takes effort for me. That's why I like Aldi cause it's small. I get in, I'm out quickly. I like the stuff they have there. I'll link my Aldi video down below. You can see what I like to pick up, but there are discount grocery stores all over the place. You may not have an Aldi near you, but you probably have some sort of a discount grocery store that you can probably check out. Number 12 is to use a crock pot, so a slow cooker for your dinners. The cool thing about these is you can set it and forget it. You can make big meals. Okay, so there's so many ways to save you money. First of all, you can make more. So these are great for leftovers for putting in the freezer for later. When you have a big pot of something, you can set it and forget it. Meaning at the end of the day, you come home, you're too tired to make anything. We should stop at the gas station at the drive through on the way home. No, you're probably not going to do that. Dinners literally at home. And the other thing is you can take cheaper cuts of meat. So if you're trying to up your protein and you want to use cheaper cuts of meat, the cool thing about the crock pot is it can sit all day, which tenderizes that meat. It can then infuse it with the flavors that are in the pot with it and make it taste much more expensive than it is. Number 13 for you coffee drinkers. If you're not a coffee drinker like me, let me know in the comments down below. I'm literally not a coffee drinker. My husband isn't either. We do not own a coffee pot. If you want coffee, do not come to my house. I don't like the smell of it. Trust me. I've tried a lot of it. I wish I could drink it. There are many times when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, you know, everybody seems really extra perky after their first cup of coffee, but I just don't. And I'm okay with that. But I understand that people love their coffee. Totally get it. But maybe you switch from buying it out and you go and find yourself a really nice mug or a travel container. You invest a little bit of money in a really nice mug that makes you feel good about making your coffee at home and taking it with you. Or you create your own cold brew if that's something you like, or you go out and find those fancy creamers. You invest in those fancy creamers, all of which over time are way less expensive than buying coffee out. Number 14 is to check your water heater to see if the temperature is too high. So Google what a good temperature is for your water heater. If you turn down the temperature on your water heater, you can save on your electricity bill. Sometimes you don't want to turn it down too much. That way you don't have enough hot water for the people in your house. But check that out. It's a great simple tip that you could check on. Number 15 is to wash your clothes in cold water. Now I understand when people want to wash in hot water for various reasons, it gets stains out. They want to shrink something. But most of the time you can just easily switch to a washing in cold water, which helps you safe. Number 16 is to make a list of cheap meals that you can choose from for the week. So go through, figure out ideas that your family likes to eat that are inexpensive. So this might be tacos. You can make a big pot of beef, vegetables, salsa. You can have your tortillas that come in these huge packs for super cheap. A big stack of cheese that you can shred. This can make multiple meals. This is a cheap family meal that feeds everybody and everybody loves. Soup, things in a crock pot. Put these on a list and put it in your recipe binder. Keep it with you. This way when you're going to decide what you're going to make for the week or get an idea for what you can make, maybe you keep some of these things, the items that you use to make with it, the pantry staples on hand so you can make them super simple. You've got a good list of things that are inexpensive. This is definitely going to be a small change that you can make that helps you save on your weekly grocery tip trip or however often you go to the grocery store. Number 17 real quick. Look at the unit prices of things before you buy them. The unit prices are where you need to look. You don't need to look at the big fancy sale sign. Buy two, one, buy two, get three free. You don't need to look at the basic price of it and see that it's less expensive than this one. Look at the unit price. That is where you're actually going to be able to compare if it's cheaper than the bigger bottle. Number 18 is to unplug unused appliances when they are not in use. Don't leave things plugged up that could use, I don't know what it's called. It's called phantom electric use or something like that. I believe I don't even leave my computer monitors plugged up. It's just a thing. I always have to unplug everything to do the charger for my computer, the computer monitors. I unplug everything. Number 19 again, small things, small, simple things that you can do to save money. Now if you happen to get a raise, usually sometimes it comes at the end of the year is when things happen. As far as my history, if you get a raise, it's going to come to the end of the year. Even if it's just a small amount, if the amount of take home pay you were getting before you were surviving on, you're doing okay on then whatever extra it is. So let's say you get a raise and then you see how much your next paycheck is. And then maybe you get paid, maybe your next paycheck is $25 extra than it was previously and you get paid twice a month. That's an extra $50 a month that you were surviving okay without prior to all automatically set up an auto withdrawal, automatically put that money in your savings account as if you did not get a raise. You didn't see it because at the end of the next year you're going to have saved an extra $50 a month without even knowing it. Have a nice little set of money on top of whatever else you were able to save. Number 20 is those consumables. You're going to use every last drop. You're going to try your darndest to get into the container safely, please. People, the cutting that some of these things open or getting into them is very difficult. If you've not seen my tip on this where I've showed you my bottle, my bottle things, what do you call them? Bottle spatulas to go on Amazon and look up bottle spatulas. They are these long thin thing that spin thin spatulas that are about the size of my pinky. So some of them are this long, this long and this long depending upon what bottle you're trying to get into, but they help you get every last drop out. Number 21, we're talking about those consumables. So yes, you're getting every last drop, but you're also going to use less. Just use toilet paper like it's not available. Does anybody remember five years ago when toilet paper was not available? Use it like it's not available. Like it's going out of style. You're not going to be able to buy it. We're going to use it sparingly. Shampoo. Do you really need that big, huge squish in your hand of shampoo or would a little bit with some water and some lathering time be sufficient? Laundry detergent. Honestly, I don't ever use even half of the recommended amount on the bottle. Not necessary. My clothes come out just fine. Number 22, write down your money goals. This is super simple. Get yourself some sticky notes. Write down what your goals are. It can be something simple as save $25 a week. Uh, don't eat, take coffee to go, uh, save for new car, whatever it is that you want to do. Make it the small ones. Take those sticky notes and put them where you are always at. So for me it might be in my closet on the mirror that's on the back of the door. I use that, see that pretty much every single day when I go to get dressed in my closet. I would put those stickies there because it's at the front of your mind. You're going to see it every single day and you're going to go out the door remembering what your goal and intention was. Number 23 is to prioritize your needs over your wants. Sometimes it comes down to paying just your needs, the things that are necessary and not your wants. You have to make sure those are paid first. Prioritize if you've got the choice between your electric bill and going out to dinner, I'm sorry, let's pay the electric bill first and if there's any money left over after all the other necessities need to be paid, then maybe we can afford to go out for dinner if we've had it budgeted. But just remembering as you're going through your month, prioritizing the things that have to be paid, that you need in order to then be able to say, okay, is there any leftover for my wants? More practical. Number 24 use task lighting. I do not like big lights whatsoever. If I'm in the office, you will see I use a lamp even in my office where I don't pay the electricity bill because I am allergic to fluorescent lights. I do. I don't like non natural lighting. I don't like too much light. I love task lighting, which also helps me to save money on electricity. Number 25 is to try think about buying generic, especially for things like, let's say headache medication. If you look at the brand name at a headache medication and you look at the store brand headache medication, you look at the ingredients nine times out of 10, that's the exact same thing, but you say $5 humongous. Why would you buy the name brand of that? Now there are some things that I do buy the name brand of. There's a yogurt that I love. That's fantastic that I buy the name brand of. Why? Because I bought the store brand several times of different items or in different store brands of the store brand yogurt. Things happened in the stomach area. We're not going to talk about it, but no thanks. I'm going back to my name brand on that one. So I'm not saying everything, but try certain things in generic, for instance, spaghetti sauce, whatever. Sure. You can make your own and it's actually a lot cheaper. It does take a little bit of time, but you can do it if you have it. But I just buy the store brand. Why? Because it tastes the same and half the time these things are made in the same factories as the name brand are. Number 27, super simple, small thing to do every single day. But the fact is if you go out to a drive through and you get a sandwich and a fry and a drink in my area, good luck getting out the door at $9 for fast food. Okay. Eight, $9 on a good day. Honestly, pack your lunch. Think about it the night before. Make something that creates leftovers. Make something that doesn't have to be heated up. If you're not going to be somewhere, you have a microwave. Think about it. Small thing, $9 a day. Add it up over a month, over a week. It's a good chunk of money. Number 28 is to stay home. What? I know. I'm not saying become a hermit. Okay. Not saying that whatsoever. Get out, have people over. That's another great one. But do things that cost nothing at home. The weather is getting nicer. Go out in nature, go to the park, walk around, do things that don't cost anything. Hang out at home, do a puzzle, start to declutter, find a board game, find a good movie for movie night. So many things that don't cost anything that are in your house. House is usually the most expensive thing that you own. And a lot of people these days just are never home and they don't know what, what's the point? You sleep there. Spending time using the place that you, the most big investment that you have hanging out there. It's going to save you money. Number 29 is employ the 24 hour rule. This is a great way to put some distance between you and an emotional spend between you and a bad decision. I mean, let's just be honest. It's only a few bad decisions going out and buying a new car, going out and getting a home loan, equity loan to be redo the flooring in your bathroom. It's only a few bad decisions from something not going well. You job being cut, you not being able to make the payments on that new car or pay back that home loan. That's getting ready to balloon in interest because it wasn't paid in time. You're only a couple bad decisions from, from not good things that can happen financially. So putting some 24 hours, even for small stuff, anything you're going, you're looking at something like, Ooh, a jean jacket. That's super cute. Put 24 hours and be like, Oh, I forgot. I already had one. Or, you know, that's never looked good on me anyway. 24 hour rule is a good one to help keep you from making bad decisions in a quick moment. Number 30 is to subscribe to channels that help you save money. If you're looking to save money, you're watching this video, frugal channels, this money saving people who are normal people on here who talk about these tips, who talk about their experiences like mine and so many others. If you haven't hit subscribe, make sure you do so down below. But the thing is I talk about, I want to talk about this tip because I know for me, when I get into a routine of watching the healthy or my fitness podcast that I like, I make better overall healthier decisions. It's like it keeps it at the top of your mind and you can't just throw it away, sweep it under the couch. You're thinking about it on a continual basis. You're continually learning and it does help. I hope you enjoyed the video. Don't forget to leave me a comment down below. If you did enjoy it, click on the like button. Also make sure to hit the subscribe button. And I look forward to seeing you again in my next video.