10 Frugal Things I Don’t Do

3 months ago 20

There are so many different ways to live a frugal lifestyle, and it can differ from person to person. Though I consider myself very frugal, this is my list of 10 things I don’t do because it’s not worth the time investment for me during this season of our lives.

When it comes to a lot of things in life, I’m a big believer in counting the time costs and looking at the return on investment. And this is also true with frugality. How much is your time worth? How much are you saving per hour to prioritize different frugal choices? Is it worth it to you?

Only you can determine that based upon your budget and your current season of life. During some seasons, if it was saving $3/hour, I needed to be saving that because money was so tight. In other seasons, there has been more breathing room in our budget, so it wasn’t worth it to invest my time into something that was only saving us $3/hour. (For example, I’ve never found it worth the time to make my own tortillas from scratch!).

10 Frugal Things I Don’t Do (Right Now)

I hope my list encourages you that no one can prioritize all the frugal things all the time and there are seasons where certain things work and seasons when they aren’t a good choice.

Here is my list of 10 frugal things I don’t currently do:

1. Use paper coupons.

Years ago, I was a couponing queen with a huge organized tub of coupons. Nowadays, I just shop the sales and use digital coupons.

2. Cloth diaper.

We exclusively cloth-diapered our first but switched to Pampers after our second had a skin reaction. I got diapers for free by playing the drugstore game!

3. Make my own laundry soap.

I’ve tried multiple times and it’s never worked for me. And now I’ve heard it actually might not be good on your washing machine.

4. Never go out to eat.

As soon as we could find room in the budget for eating out, we prioritized it. It’s so nice not to cook occasionally!

(Psst! Looking for coupons to help cut the cost on eating out? Follow along for our best restaurant coupons each day, plus check out all of these places that kids eat for free!)

5. Always re-use baggies.

I only re-use freezer bags if they’ve had dry ingredients in them or if I’m putting the same ingredients in them (i.e. we usually have a bag in the freezer where we put frozen bananas).

6. Cut my kids’/husband’s hair.

I grew up with my mom cutting my hair. But I’ve tried and was a terrible failure at this one! So we go to the salon instead!

7. Shop at Aldi.

I love Aldi and have shopped t here off and on my entire adult life, but Kroger delivery and digital coupons are where it’s at for us right now.

(You might find this article interesting on an experiment about which is cheaper — Kroger or Aldi!)

8. Always buy used.

My girls are big into thrifting, but I find it’s a lot of time investment for me & I often don’t love what I find. (I do love ThredUp, though — which is sort of like online thrifting!)

9. Dry our laundry on a clothes line.

My mom loved doing this and many people swear by it, but I just don’t love it. Plus, it doesn’t jive well with my allergies.

10. Plant a garden.

We always had a HUGE garden growing up and it can save you a lot of money. But it’s a big time investment and not something I’ve prioritized after marriage.

Looking for more frugal inspiration?

What are some frugal things you DON’T do? I’d love to hear!

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