It's easy to get discouraged when you see a million ways you could be saving money, and you're not doing any of them. And it can go the way of new year's resolutions - you resolve to do a million things to get habits under control and fail within a week. Usually this is a result of not setting goals that are realistic for you, where you are in your life.
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Introduce habits as baby steps. You're not going to go from buying disposable everything to completely eliminating paper towels and plastic bags in a week. Start by choosing one task to use a rag for, or switching leftovers to reusable containers.
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You can save money even if you're not doing the most frugal option ever. If you're going to buy microwave food, there are more and less frugal options - for example, premade bean dishes, rice, and frozen veggies.
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Frugal options that you never use don't save you money. No point buying food to rot in the fridge, or cheap clothes that never get that one fix they need.
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Remember to budget your own time and energy too. You need to relax; you will crash if you go over your energy budget and it'll probably blow your financial budget out of the water.
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Some things will be easier or harder for you. Plan accordingly. It's always easier to save money on things you enjoy doing and it uses less of your energy budget. If you enjoy sewing but hate cooking, focus more on saving money on your clothes.
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If you're buying things, you're probably buying things for a reason. That reason may be psychological. Try to replace this with a less expensive option rather than simply trying to force yourself to give it up, or set up some sort of tangible reward. Most of us aren't very good at just telling ourselves not to do this or that.
Point is, most of us really suck at simply ordering ourselves to be more frugal in everything now. And that doesn't make you a bad person; it makes you a normal human. You have to work with your normal human brain to get to your goals.
April 27, 2018 at 08:19AM
