Frugal Friday: Tough Times Ahead

With inflation on the rise and the prospects of a recession, or even worse, a depression on the horizon, I thought I would start this Frugal Friday blog and share tips on how I learned to be frugal over the years of raising and homeschooling six kids on a single income. Of course, my methods won’t be for everyone, but hopefully it will spark some ideas of your own and help you look at this as a creative challenge and not something to dread.

The first major step in becoming frugal is developing a budget. You need to know where your money is going, as boring (or intimidating) as that seems. The system doesn’t have to be elaborate. Over the years I’ve tried various methods and software, but I find always go back to my spiral notebook (which by the way, with school starting, spiral notebooks go on sale so I always grab a few during the back to school sales, and shopping sales is definitely a trick to stay on budget).

Knowing where your money is going means you need to write down every purchase for at least a month. Keep those receipts! Digital or real. For my paper receipts, I toss them in a little basket and then record them every few days when I have a spare minute.  If you have receipts lying around from previous months, you can write those down, as well. I know in these days of digital receipts, you might have a few in your emails and/or on your phone, as well.  It shouldn’t take long to see a pattern emerging. You can set up the categories however you like, but this is how I divide mine.

Regular monthly expenses:

Rent or mortgage

(or homeowners insurance and taxes if you’re mortgage free)

Utilities: (gas, electric, water)

Cable/Internet

Gasoline

Groceries

Household expenses

Clothes

Pets

Misc. expenses

Also, while you’re writing things down, think about your long term or once a year expenses: tires, insurance (life, home, car, medical), car maintenance like oil changes, and yearly recurring expenses for things like virus software. Write down what you can remember because that will come into play, as well.

While you’re in the zone of thinking about all these expenses, do you have any major expenses coming up that you need to save for? Braces for kids, house or car repairs? Write those down as well.

That’s all for this week, just start recording your expenses. Next week we’ll talk about your income and if you have more income going out than coming in, or if you’re lucky and you are at least breaking even!

If you have any suggestions for other expenses that I might not have thought of or if there are topics you know now that you need help with, then be sure to write in the comments!

Thanks, and see you next Friday!