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Today I am sharing several ways we save $100's by living frugally and within our means. We are a single income family and want to live simply and thrifty.
Hope these tips help
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Hi everybody. Today I wanted to share some frugal tips as a homemaker and also a single
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income family. So I am just going to share with you what I kind of racked through my
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brain and talked with my husband a little bit about what we do that helps us save and
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cut costs on living expenses really. So the first thing is that we don't have, we never
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bought an Alexa or like those home devices and that's just something that was a craze
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several years ago. We just didn't hop on it and I am okay with that. I can set timers
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on my smart phone. I can ask Siri a question if I really need to on my phone and so we
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just didn't buy those extras for our home. Another thing we don't have is a membership
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to places like Costco or Sam's. We've debated on it several times. We did for a while but
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then we never used it very much and so we did get rid of it and now really the only
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reason I want a Costco membership to be honest is for their coffee. I really like their coffee
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but otherwise we just shop at Aldi for the most part. Okay another thing we don't have
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is any extras on our TV. We don't have cable, we don't have dish, we have just the straight
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old antenna so we don't have to pay those monthly fees or stuff like that. We don't
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have Netflix. We do have Amazon Prime but we shop enough on that that it pays for and
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that's like our one extra thing. We either watch shows on that or something of that sort
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So we didn't buy any extras for our TV. Okay another thing that we don't do is buy new
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anything. So this kind of encompasses our whole living view. We don't buy new vehicles
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We've always had used vehicles and they've gotten us through really well. I don't think
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for us personally that we need to have the newest, the best, something that works. A
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family vehicle, it fit us well and it just saved a bunch of money that we paid for in
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cash and that's another thing too is buying things with cash. If you don't have the money
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then don't buy it. We don't buy brand new clothes or home decor. As most of you know
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who follow me, I am a thrifter, an antiquer. Everything I buy is used really and the thing
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with used clothes, you can typically find items that are better made than let's say if you go to
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Walmart and buy their $7 shirts that are to me pretty much see-through right away and so then
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they only last that year instead of products that you can find, better name brands at thrift
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stores for cheaper for the most part. And home decor I often just shop thrifted as well. Every
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once in a while I'll buy like a new pillow cover from Amazon but not very often do I do that. So
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I definitely buy used, secondhand, thrifted, all those things with everything we have. Another
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thing though that we do do is make food from scratch. So I buy enough groceries for two weeks
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we rarely eat out. We live in a small town anyway so there's not a lot of places to eat out around
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here. We do have a budget set for $80 a month to eat out and we rarely have hit that especially in
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this whole last year. But even before the pandemic and everything we rarely hit $80 a month and
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eating out for a family of three. So just making food from home is a huge money saver for us. Another
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area we save money is with doctor's visits. I do a lot of home remedies that I do invest in essential
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oils so that's something I guess if you go to doctors instead of essential oils that could be
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your cost for medical expenses I guess you say. But to me the essential oils last longer and then
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we don't have regular doctor's visits. My husband hasn't gone to see a doctor since his sinus
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surgery a year and a half ago. Nevaeh has only gone to a couple of her wellness visits. After
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that I am okay not taking her if they're just gonna talk with me. There's no reason to go visit
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if we're doing well for my pregnancy. I go when I feel I have a question or there's an issue but
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otherwise I don't even go to my regular monthly appointments just because I feel I feel fine
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baby's been moving. So I mean that's something that you do what you feel is comfortable for you
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and your family but that's one area that we have not continued to just go because we have a slight
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cough or because the doctors recommend it. We don't always just go. Another thing is we do more
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activities that are free or outdoors. So in the summers we do more hiking, things that require no
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expense, no fees to get into like visiting a lot of museums. Not that we have that around here where
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I'm at but just a lot of things that cost to go into games, basketball games, I don't know I just
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can't rack my brain, concerts, stuff like that. If they're like a free outdoor concert sure we'll
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probably go but I'm not gonna spend twenty thirty dollars regularly to go to an activity. And a way
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I try to help us save money too is I sell things on Facebook Marketplace or eBay. So those old decor
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pieces, old clothes that you have sitting around that are still in good condition, try selling them
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instead of just up and donating them right away. That is a good way to kind of supplement the
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income and just use it more wisely then and you feel like you have like a second side stream of
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income. So that is yeah that's my list I thought of. I'm sure I missed several more that I didn't
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really think of or I didn't touch on but hopefully this just encourages you as a homemaker to be
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frugal and be able to save money in areas that maybe you didn't think about before. If you have
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other places that you save money put them in the comments below. I'd love to have my other
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viewers and subscribers see those and I would love to see those too. So hope you feel inspired
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as a homemaker and we'll talk with you in the next video
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