The fact that we are paying for a lot of things means that we have a lot of things to start being frugal with.
For instance, if you are smoking two packs a day, you can always cut that down to one – although quitting altogether is much better.
Vices aside, three of the most obvious aspects of life that we spend most of our money on is food, clothing, and bills.
For food, you can always cook the meals yourself and stay away from convenience foods. For clothing, you can always try to avoid buying new ones unless absolutely necessary.
For the bills, it really depends. For your mobile phone bill, for instance, you can consider reducing the minute plan.
As for the electric bill, most people find it difficult to reduce. The most common reason is that every piece of electronics in their homes is necessary.
Here are a few things you can do to cut your electric bills down
Turn Off When Not in Use
This is probably the most “overplayed” yet underrated rule. First comes the argument of power surging when turning electronics on – that it offsets whatever energy you saved when turning them off.
The fact is that there IS power surging when turning, say, lights on. However, it never gets any close to the electricity you save if you have them turned off most of the time. If you keep turning them on and off every ten seconds, then that’s another story.
Power Saving Alternatives
If there’s a way you can do without using any electronic appliance, do so.
For instance, the most current light bulbs usually have power saving counterparts. Whenever possible, opt for these types of bulbs. If you have to iron a lot of clothes, you can opt for the good old coal iron instead of the electric one.
If you have to cook a lot of dishes at home, consider using coal as opposed to doing everything on your electric stove.
Reduce Subscriptions
Similar to reducing your mobile phone plan, you can try thinking about reducing or even unsubscribing from your cable company.
Chances are that you’re watching under twenty channels on TV, so you don’t really need three hundred channels on your subscription. Besides, you can watch TV shows online these days.
It’s legal, as long as it doesn’t involve peer to peer and torrents. Of course, before cancelling your cable subscription in favor of watching your TV online, you have to check the online software first if it can replace your boob tube.
Credit card subscriptions are also good. It leaves less room for temptation and debt.
Alternative Power Sources
A lot of people don’t really take solar power seriously – as if it is just something you’d see in a science experiment. The fact is that you can save a LOT from putting up several solar panels in your home.
At the very least, you can run on purely stored solar power for about six hours a day. Of course, you have to consider whether solar power is good for you at all.
Maybe you are beside bigger buildings and you don’t get a lot of sun. There are other sources of renewable energy. If it’s windy in your area, try wind turbines instead.
Lastly, when putting up these alternative power systems, you should try to do them yourself. This is a whole lot cheaper than buying a whole solar power system.
Your electric bill may not go down as drastically as you may hope, but in frugality, you have to look long term.
Let’s say you save ten dollars a month, which makes twelve hundred a year, which could have been used for something else.
If you need to start frugal living, you have to think like a frugal girl/guy – looking at the long term rewards as opposed to whining about how you can’t save any big bucks.