How about some real frugal money saving tips? We have all read those “money saving tips” floating around in internet land, and I’m sure I am not the only one laughing at those tips. Over the years I have searched and searched for REALISTIC tips to save money and reduce expenses. Unfortunately, however, those tips were either “DUH” things we were already doing and grew up doing or things that we never had a problem with spending in the first place.
Here are some silly examples:
- Buy a knock off instead of a designer bag (HA! I never did that to begin with. In my 24 years of carrying a purse, I have only had 5 purses AND $20 for a purse would be expensive in my book back then)
- Do not get your coffee at Starbucks (HA! NEVER did anyway or any similar store)
- Cook from scratch (ALWAYS have)
- Buy store brand or generic food (ALWAYS have)
- Get rid of cable (HA! never had it or satellite-free antennae baby)
- Buy generic medications (don’t take any, but we would if we did anyway)
I could go on and on, but you get the point, these are the most obvious and most commonly listed “money saving tips” out there.
Let me insert an apology to anyone who sincerely was not aware of these tips and grew up in a different environment than me.
The hard financially straining truth is that over the years, my household desperately needed some practical realistic tips to not only continue to survive, but hopefully to thrive. We never took out government assistance of any kind, which may have helped, but we did not want to go that route. Instead, by living paycheck to paycheck with just enough to get by and pay our bills on time, God took care of us. We learned to trust Him completely no matter our circumstance.
We were a homeschooling family living on one income and with the cost of living and inflation continually increasing, my husband never got a usable raise. Some years, he’d get a cost of living raise of about $30 a month, but the health insurance would take all that and then some. It was 14 years before my husband got a usable raise, and that was only acquired through a promotion, which required us to move away from family, friends, and our church.
Thankfully, I firmly believe that not only through God, but through mine and my husband’s financially poor upbringings, we were creative. We learned so much from our families about frugal living and making things make do, that it all worked out. While we really did make everything work, we never went hungry, our bills were always paid before they were due, we had more than enough, but we never did have anything left from the paycheck, never had a savings, if something catastrophic would have happened…we knew God would handle it. There was and still is GREAT peace knowing and trusting in Him.
You see, we were on no government assistance of any kind, we had no debt except our house payment so no college debt, no credit card, and no vehicle payments. All we had was house payment, property taxes, gas, car insurance, food, pet feed, church tithes, internet/phone bill, no cell phone besides $10 emergency Tracfone, $10/month Netflix account, and less than $200-400 a year to homeschool our children. We rarely ate out, cooked from scratch, limited our kids’ Christmas gifts to no more than 3 gifts each. We didn’t buy gifts for each other. We never shopped for fun or just for something to do. We didn’t go on vacations. We fixed, remodeled, repaired everything ourselves. I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. We had no frivolous spending and no lavish expenses, but we still had no savings and were living paycheck to paycheck. However again, I will say, we never cried wondering how we were going to make it. It all worked out through God and our creative resourcefulness and our frugal upbringing.
Some may say we could’ve been better off financially if we did not tithe. In our personal situation, years earlier, we didn’t tithe, hoping to get ahead. That turned into misery and worry for a few months until my husband said we were going to start tithing. I was so nervous because what if something happened that month. Well, that was many many years ago, and I have to say our finances became much better once we tithed cheerfully and without hesitation.
Back to these tips. Several years ago, I decided to write down all the little things we did around the house to save money and reduce expenses to someday give the list to my children when they were grown. Now our oldest is married with her own family and due to the Bidenflation, over the past 4 years I have been hearing heartbreaking news of many couples fighting over finances and looking for ways to cut back, but they find themselves like me all those years ago where the money saving tips do not apply to them.
That is why, I decided to publish this article with my 200+ Frugal Money Saving Tips Around the House. Some of the tips I believe are common sense, are popular things to do nowadays, but they weren’t always known of or popular back in the day. It is my hope that this list of tips will encourage and inspire you in your pursuit to cut costs and reduce expenses.
You can access my collection of over 200 tips to save money here.
