6 Frugal Skills That Can Help You Save Money
In today’s sharing economy, it is possible to outsource almost anything: from food preparation and clothing repair to car maintenance and cleaning. While paying someone to do the hard yards for you is easy and convenient, it can also be expensive and cost you more than a fair share of your own hard labour. If you have set yourself financial goals then it pays to be frugal in your day-to-day activity to ensure you can reach them as soon as possible. Frittering away money on mere convenience places a huge roadblock on the path to financial independence. In this blog post we discuss 6 frugal skills that can help you save money.
Plan and Organise Your Finances
The foremost skill required to live a frugal life is the ability to plan and organise yourself financially. Set a budget and start planning every expense from home maintenance to food shopping. Subscribe to catalogues which can save you money during sales and set goals to help you keep track of your success living frugally.
Think Creatively
As discussed above, it is far easier to simply buy your way out of a problem than come up with an alternative solution. Part of living frugally, however, is coming up with creative solutions to problems which can be solved by spending. The key to thinking creatively with your finances is asking two key questions: “how can I solve this problem using things I have?” and “How can I reuse this instead of throwing it away?”. This might manifest in things as simple as using duct tape or glue to make repairs or repurposing wrapping paper and boxes.
Cooking
Food can be a huge monthly expense if you are buying takeaway or ordering food via Uber or another sharing economy app. Cooking from scratch using raw materials not only saves you money, it is also part of a happy, balanced life.
Shop Intelligently
Shopping intelligently can be as easy as subscribing to several sales catalogues or buying second-hand. This is particularly apt if you are making big purchases: rather than buying the first item you see, shop around and see if you can get a better deal on the same or a similar product elsewhere. Online shopping makes this task increasingly easy.
Do it Yourself
When it comes to things like home maintenance, gift-making or manufacturing condiments, there is a lot to be said of the do-it-yourself approach. Sometimes hiring a professional is necessary, but if you can learn the skills to maintain a DIY approach to most household problems you will undoubtedly save yourself money.
Maintain What You Own
Being able to maintain what you own and fix things rather than replace them saves you a whole lot of money and also reduces unnecessary waste that ends up in landfill. Changing tap washers, clearing drains and gutters, weeding, pruning and mowing, pest control, cleaning, toy repair and pet grooming can all often be done yourself in order to save you money. Rather than buy replacements when things break, Google how to fix them to save yourself unnecessary expense.
Contact Pillar Financial
Call our friendly team on 1300 730 309 or reach out via our contact page to ask what we can do for you as you begin your journey towards saving money.
