Frugal Abundance - Frugal Living Tips for a Healthy Lifestyle

Frugal Abundance – Frugal Living Tips for a Healthy Lifestyle

Frugal Living At Its Best

Frugal Living Tips for a Healthy Lifestyle

There are as many different definitions of frugality as there are ways to practice frugal living. Though frugality is extremely personal in practice, I think it’s helpful to frame it in a healthy way by cultivating a mindset of abundance rather than one of lack. 

Many people view frugality as shunning the finer things of life while miserly pinching pennies until they scream. The Oxford dictionary suggests as much. But I prefer the Merriam – Webster’s dictionary definition: “careful management of material resources and especially money.”

In addition to material resources, I believe that frugality also includes the time and energy available to us. After all, the somewhat-cliche adage, “time is money” has a good deal of merit. In my experience, time and money are inversely related.

Frugality in managing these resources of time, money, and energy comes down to dedicated, prioritized, and creative intentionality. This thoughtful intention of prioritizing what matters most to you allows you to spend your resources truly investing in those things. And when you invest in the areas of your life that are genuinely important to you, it’s much easier to adopt an abundance mindset and to feel rich – in all the ways that matter.

The Bottom Line 

Ultimately, frugality allows you to live within your means, avoid overwhelm, and intentionally enjoy the things you really want in life. Rather than feeling deprived and skimping on every area of your lifestyle, you are able to make the best of what you have while cultivating a mindset of contentment and abundance.

Frugal Living Tip #1
Eating Nutritiously on a Budget

For me, one of my top priorities is my family’s health and well-being. Providing our bodies with nutrient-dense and nourishing food is a huge part of nurturing our health, so we invest in our food and nutrition.

My guess is that you feel the same way since you’re here and reading this post. However, with historic inflation and an unstable economy, it’s harder than ever to stretch our dollars and still be able to source the same quality of food as we have been before. 

A nutritious diet  is still possible to attain on a tighter budget, but it requires careful planning, intentional awareness, and a bit of extra effort (that’s totally worth it!)

Eating Nutritiously on a Budget

Here are some of the things we're doing to make the most of our food budget.

  1. Purchase food in season. Learn to put it up by canni, freezing or drying. 
  1. Find creative ways to stretch your meals and add healthy options as well. For example, I Mix lentils in with ground beef for tacos, chili, meatloaf sloppy joes, meatballs, everything to stretch it. In baking, substitute 1/4 applesauce for the fat for a healthier and less expensive option. 
  1. Buy the highest quality you can afford of the things that matter to you. I.e. we buy organic grass fed butter and organic beef, since these things are important to us. We are being frugal because I am using our .kney if a way that is meaningful to us . 
  1. Source the most nutrient-dense foods you can afford: some great options include: sweet potato, cabbage, carrots, onions and garlic, winter squash, frozen veggies, apples and spinach. 

5 . Grow your own foods when you can . I am working on growing much more of my own food, but for now, I can grow herbs and spices on my porch, as well as some container tomatoes, and a weekly batch of sprouts or micro greens to add to our salads, soups or sandwiches for an extra nutritional boost. Do what you can with what you have where you are!

6. Prioritize items that will yield the best overall value. For example, we are saving for a Berkey water filter at the moment. They cost over $300. A plastic Brita would be cheaper, but the Berkey will yield a higher quality water and  will last our family for a long time.

7. Set aside money each month and plan your purchases to be able to buy the larger quantity. For example, the algae omega supplement I take is quite a bit cheaper per day if I buy a three month supply over a one month supply. If I prepare ahead of time, I can save a bit each month so that I can purchase the item in bulk and free up some cash to use for our other priorities, or even be able to afford something that we otherwise would not be able to fit into the budget. 

Frugal Living Tip #2
Contentment Fosters Freedom

Contentment and Freedom 

Learn to enjoy the simple things. The best things in life aren’t things and are free – like spending time with those who are near and dear to you and nurturing a lifestyle of simple abundance. Embracing simplicity makes you feel abundantly blessed no matter how much money or resources you have. 

The truth is, everyone has a limited income. No matter how much you make, there’s always a limit to it and it’s easy to allow our desires and lifestyle to creep up to meet or even exceed our resources.

Instead of looking at being frugal as limiting ourselves in depriving ourselves, but instead have the mindset that we have everything we need, And we You the resources we have as an abundance we get to choose where it goes. 

Going back to the time-money equation, it is a helpful exercise in prioritizing our resources.

I often consider how much money something costs and equate that to the time working my husband or I have to spend to see if it is worth my time. 

Being frugal in our purchases also allows us more time freedom because we’re not having to work so much. 

Simplicity in life combined with contentment results in a feeling of abundance, and that mindset can be yours no matter how much money you have.

Frugal Living Tip #3
Be Mindful of Marketing

So much of what we buy and how we spend our money and how we think about how we spend our money is influenced by modern marketing techniques. Marketing researchers are extremely good at creating a need when there is none.

It really started in earnest during the industrial revolution and up through the roaring twenties. Our factories were creating surplus of goods, So the companies had to create a market for them. So, companies had to create a need for these products by marketing and making people people feel like they couldn’t live without them.

There are psychologists and researchers who study how to influence the human brain and they have honed it to a fine art. Only when we are cognizant of this can we carefully and intentionally evaluate the subliminal messages we are receiving from this bombardment of advertisements. Then we are equipped to sift through the messages we are receiving and make more informed and mindful choices.

Frugal Living Tip #4
Intentionally Simplify

One example I can give is the wide array of cleaning products available in any given store. There is a specific specially formulated cleaning product for just about every place in your home. But for the most part, one or two solutions will effectively and safely clean 95% of your surfaces if not more. Instead of having a tile cleaner and sink cleaner and surface cleaner and floor cleaner and the list goes on and on, I have one disinfectant, a toilet bowl cleaner, and a homemade citrus multi-surface cleaner that I use on everything else.

When you really dial it back and ask yourself what you really need, It becomes obvious how much extra we have that we don’t need. All of those extra cleaning supplies don’t make me happy, they don’t bring me joy, and while pairing back on cleaning supplies and spending $100 to $200 less per year by making my own, that’s not going to make or break our bank accounts. But if I evaluate these areas of my life one at a time, it adds up very quickly. 

It may seem overwhelming to spend time considering all of these changes, but if you work on one at a time and find something that works for you, it eliminates decision fatigue because you have fewer options and the option you do have, you know will work efficiently and effectively. You don’t have to think about it anymore. And that’s when it becomes automatic and frees up your mind and energy to focus on other things you would rather do (and buy!)

Frugal Living Tip #5
Return on Investment

Another tip that I have for frugal living, is to consider the return on your investment for everything that you buy. For example, I am willing to spend quite a bit of money on a really high quality soil to amend our gardens and property so that we can begin growing crops sooner, and build up our soil health much faster. Although the investment is significant in the beginning, instead of buying cheap dirt or doing the bare minimum, I’m going to invest more money and time and setting it up well because I know that they return will be worth it. And if I have to spend a bit more time to save up to buy the product, I am willing to do that.

Frugal Living Tip #6
Delayed Gratification

A good portion of practicing for gality is practicing delaued gratification. In this modern world We’re instant gratification has become the new normal for just about everything. Whether you are shopping online (hello Amazon one day shipping!) Using credit cards to purchase non-essentials (you’ll pay it off later, right?)

Our culture is obsessed with getting things right now. It’s remarkable to me how almost every website I visit has an instant pay or pay later at checkout option. I’ve never considered financing a piece of clothing or a skin care product before, But it’s amazing how easily available things are so that you don’t have to wait.

I remember when layaway was a thing, and I haven’t heard of stores offering layaway since I was a teenager. No they all have credit cards. Get it now, pay for it later. This mentality is not only dangerous because it can allow you to get into a lot of debt before you even realize it, it has allowed most people to avoid the pain and satisfaction of delaying gratification. Things are sweeter when you have to wait for them, don’t you think? And also, if you have to wait to invest in something, you spend a bit more time thinking about whether or not you really need it.

Frugal Living Tip #7
Splurge on your True Priorities

When it comes to the things really matter to you in life, whether that is The highest quality food you can afford, wonderfully enriching vacations, an extensive and never-ending pile of TBR, or a weekly massage or wellness treatment, here’s where you can go for it.

You now have the guilt-free ability to spend your time, money, and energy on things that you know will truly enrich your life and give you a feeling of abundance.

This leaves you feeling richly abundant and able to enjoy the finer things in life that really matter to you. 

Overall, frugality is a way to free up your time...

Overall, frugality is a way to free up your time and money for the things that really matter to you. And living a lifestyle where you prioritize wellness doesn’t have to be expensive, costly, or unattainable. It just has to be an intentional priority.

FRUGALITY
Fall Meal Plan & Recipe Roundup
The Art of Slow Friendship - Nurturing Meaningful Relationships in a Fast-Paced World
    Cart