25 Real Ways to Live More Frugally Starting This Week
Practical, creative, and some you probably haven't thought of
Frugal living isn't one big dramatic decision. It's a hundred small ones, made consistently over time, that quietly add up to something significant. Some of these you've heard before. Some of them might surprise you. A few of them might make you raise an eyebrow — and then, once you think about it for a second, make complete sense.
None of these require a major lifestyle overhaul. None of them require a particular income level or a particular kind of household. All of them save real money. All of them are things real people do, every day, without feeling deprived or diminished. Frugality is not about suffering through your life counting pennies — it's about being intentional with what you have so that what you have goes further and means more.
Start with one or two that feel manageable and build from there. Small habits compound. What feels like a modest change today becomes a significant one over the course of a year.
1. Make your own reusable paper towels.
Cut up old flannel shirts, worn-out t-shirts, or inexpensive flannel fabric into squares roughly the size of a paper towel. Hem the edges if you want them to last longer, or just cut them with pinking shears to prevent fraying. Stack them where your paper towel roll used to live. Use them for spills, wiping counters, drying hands — everything you'd use a paper towel for. Toss them in the wash with your regular laundry. A household that goes through two rolls of paper towels a week will save over a hundred dollars a year with this one swap alone, and the cloths last for years.
2. Make your own reusable cleaning wipes.
Take a stack of those same cloth squares, or cut up old washcloths, and keep them in a container with a simple homemade solution: water, a small amount of dish soap, and a splash of white vinegar or rubbing alcohol. They function exactly like disposable Clorox wipes for counters, appliances, bathroom surfaces, and general cleaning. When you're done, they go in the wash. A canister of disposable wipes costs two to four dollars and gets used up in days. Your reusable version costs almost nothing after the initial setup and lasts indefinitely.
3. Consider reusable bathroom cloths.
Stay with me here, because this one sounds more alarming than it is. Many families around the world use cloth wipes in the bathroom rather than toilet paper, and it is genuinely not the horror show most Americans imagine. Think about it this way: we used cloth diapers on babies for generations. We wash cloth menstrual products. A small stack of soft cloth squares kept in a container next to the toilet, used for wiping and then dropped into a small lidded bin to be laundered, is not categorically different. You can use them exclusively or just for certain situations. Toilet paper costs the average household several hundred dollars a year. Even partially replacing it makes a real dent.
4. Make your own laundry detergent.
A basic homemade laundry detergent requires only three ingredients: washing soda, borax, and a bar of Fels-Naptha or Zote soap, grated fine. Mix them together and use two tablespoons per load. The cost per load drops to just a few cents, compared to twenty to thirty cents per load for commercial detergent. A batch takes about fifteen minutes to make and lasts for months.
5. Line dry your laundry.
A clothes dryer is one of the most expensive appliances to run in a household. Air drying costs nothing, and clothes last significantly longer when they're not being tumbled through heat repeatedly. An outdoor clothesline is ideal, but an indoor drying rack works perfectly well in any climate. Even line drying half your loads makes a meaningful difference on your electric bill over the course of a year.
6. Wash clothes in cold water.
The vast majority of the energy a washing machine uses goes toward heating the water, not running the machine itself. Modern detergents are formulated to work just as effectively in cold water. Switching to cold for all but heavily soiled loads costs almost nothing and saves meaningfully on energy costs over time.
7. Plan your meals around what's on sale and what you already have.
Most people plan meals and then go buy ingredients. Flip that process. Check your pantry and your freezer first, then check what's on sale at your grocery store, and build your meals around those two things. It takes a few extra minutes of planning and saves a significant amount of money because you're not buying ingredients you already have and you're not letting sale prices go unnoticed.
8. Cook once, eat multiple times.
When you make a pot of soup, a roasted chicken, a pan of rice, or a batch of beans, make more than you need for one meal. Intentional leftovers are not sad — they're efficient. Repurpose them into different meals throughout the week rather than cooking from scratch every night. One roasted chicken becomes chicken tacos becomes chicken soup. One pot of beans becomes a side dish becomes a burrito filling becomes soup. This approach cuts your grocery bill and your cooking time simultaneously.
9. Grow something edible.
Even a small container garden on a porch or patio can produce meaningful amounts of food. Herbs are the most economical place to start — fresh basil, rosemary, thyme, and mint at the grocery store cost two to four dollars per small bunch and die in your refrigerator within a week. A single pot of each on your porch costs a few dollars to start and produces continuously all season. Cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers are also highly productive in containers and require very little space.
10. Make your own cleaning products.
White vinegar, baking soda, castile soap, and water handle the majority of household cleaning tasks effectively and cost a fraction of what commercial cleaners charge. An all-purpose spray is simply diluted white vinegar with a few drops of essential oil if you want a pleasant scent. A scrubbing paste is baking soda with enough castile soap to make it spreadable. A glass cleaner is water and white vinegar in equal parts. You are largely paying for packaging and branding when you buy commercial cleaners. The chemistry underneath them is simple and cheap.
11. Cancel cable and consolidate streaming.
If you're still paying for cable, you're almost certainly overpaying for channels you never watch. Streaming services have made cable largely redundant for most households. If you do subscribe to streaming services, audit them regularly and rotate rather than maintain multiple subscriptions simultaneously. Watch everything you want on one service, cancel it, move to the next. You rarely need more than two active at once.
12. Use the library — fully.
The public library is one of the most underused financial resources available to most Americans. Beyond books, most libraries now offer free access to ebooks and audiobooks through apps like Libby and Hoopla, streaming music, digital magazines, online courses, museum passes, and more. If you're spending money on Audible, Kindle books, magazine subscriptions, or Masterclass, check your library first. Much of it is available for free with a library card.
13. Shop your own home before buying anything new.
Before purchasing any home décor, supplies, clothing, or household item, do a thorough walk through what you already own. Move things between rooms. Repurpose items. Style what you have differently. Most of us have more than we think, and a fresh arrangement of existing objects is often just as satisfying as something new. This habit also forces you to truly see what you already own, which reduces the impulse to acquire more.
14. Buy quality secondhand rather than cheap new.
For clothing, furniture, kitchen equipment, and home goods, a well-made secondhand item consistently outperforms a cheaply made new one. Thrift stores, Facebook Marketplace, estate sales, and apps like ThredUp and Poshmark are full of high-quality items at a fraction of their original cost. The frugal goal is never to spend as little as possible — it's to get the most value. A ten-dollar thrifted blouse that lasts five years is a better purchase than a five-dollar fast fashion piece that falls apart in three washes.
15. Repair before replacing.
Sew the button back on. Patch the knee. Glue the sole. Tighten the screw. We have been so thoroughly conditioned by consumer culture to replace things when they break that the option to repair them often doesn't even occur to us anymore. Most minor damage to clothing, furniture, appliances, and household objects is fixable with basic tools, a needle and thread, or a quick YouTube tutorial. Repairing extends the life of what you own dramatically.
16. Make your own coffee and tea at home.
This one is not new advice, but it bears repeating because the numbers are genuinely striking. A daily coffee shop habit easily costs fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars a year. A bag of good whole bean coffee brewed at home costs roughly a dollar a day at most. If coffee shop drinks are a genuine pleasure for you, keep them as an occasional treat rather than a daily default. The treat will also feel more special when it's not a habit.
17. Embrace meatless meals several times a week.
Meat is consistently the most expensive item in a grocery cart. Building several meals a week around beans, lentils, eggs, cheese, and vegetables rather than meat reduces grocery costs significantly without sacrificing nutrition or satisfaction. Bean-based soups, vegetable stir fries, lentil dishes, egg-based dinners, and pasta with vegetables are all genuinely filling, genuinely delicious, and genuinely cheap. This isn't about eliminating meat — it's about not making it the center of every single meal.
18. Use cloth napkins instead of paper.
This is one of the simplest swaps available. A set of cloth napkins, even inexpensive ones from a thrift store or made from fabric scraps, replaces paper napkins entirely. They go in the wash with your regular laundry, they feel nicer at the table, and they last for years. Paper napkins are one of those small ongoing costs that seem negligible but add up surprisingly fast.
19. Master the no-buy period.
A no-buy challenge — committing for a week, a month, or longer to purchasing nothing beyond absolute necessities — is one of the most effective ways to reset your relationship with spending. It forces creativity with what you already have. It reveals how many purchases are habitual rather than needed. And it consistently surprises people with how little they actually miss the things they thought they couldn't do without. Even a two-week no-buy challenge can shift your spending patterns in lasting ways.
20. Make your own bread.
A basic loaf of homemade bread costs less than a dollar to make and takes about fifteen minutes of active time, with a few hours of rising in between. It tastes significantly better than most commercial bread, contains no preservatives, and the process itself is genuinely satisfying. Artisan bread from a store or bakery can run four to seven dollars a loaf. Once you know how to make it, you'll find it hard to justify the cost of buying it.
21. DIY your personal care products.
Body scrubs, hair masks, face masks, and many skincare products can be made at home with simple pantry ingredients for pennies compared to what they cost in stores. A sugar and olive oil scrub. A honey and oat face mask. A coconut oil hair treatment. These are not inferior substitutes — many of them are genuinely excellent, without the added fragrances, fillers, and packaging costs built into commercial products. Start with one or two and expand from there.
22. Lower your thermostat strategically.
Heating and cooling are significant household expenses. Dropping your thermostat a few degrees in winter and raising it a few degrees in summer, particularly during hours when you're asleep or out of the house, adds up to real savings over the course of a year. Layering up at home in winter, using fans strategically in summer, and sealing drafts around windows and doors amplifies those savings further. None of this requires discomfort — just a small shift in what you've come to think of as the normal indoor temperature.
23. Take care of your health proactively.
This one is less obvious but deeply important. Preventive health care — regular dental cleanings, annual checkups, staying on top of small issues before they become large ones, eating reasonably well, moving your body, getting enough sleep — is one of the most financially sound practices available to you. Medical and dental emergencies are among the most common causes of financial hardship for American families. The frugal approach to health is not to avoid the doctor to save money — it's to take care of yourself consistently so the catastrophic bills are less likely to arrive.
24. Buy in bulk strategically.
Bulk buying saves money only when applied to things you genuinely use regularly and that store well. Household staples like rice, dried beans, oats, flour, sugar, toilet paper, and cleaning supplies make excellent bulk purchases. Perishables that you may not use before they expire do not. The key is knowing your own household's actual consumption patterns and buying ahead only on the things you know will be used. Bulk buying things that then sit until they expire or get thrown away is not frugal — it's just spending more at once.
25. Find free versions of things before paying for them.
Before paying for anything — an app, a course, a piece of software, a book, a streaming service, a tool, a piece of exercise equipment — spend five minutes looking for a free or significantly cheaper version. Free apps replace paid ones. Library cards replace book purchases. YouTube replaces paid tutorial courses. Borrowing a tool from a neighbor or a tool library replaces buying one you'll use twice. Community groups, Buy Nothing groups, and local online marketplaces are full of things being given away that people are simultaneously paying retail for elsewhere. The free version often exists. We just don't look for it first.
26. Dilute everything.
This is one of the simplest and most overlooked frugal habits available to you, and once you start doing it you will wonder why you never thought of it before. Almost every liquid product you buy at the store can be diluted with water by at least half and will perform just as well for most everyday tasks.
Laundry detergent. Dish soap. Body wash. Shampoo. Conditioner. Hand soap. All-purpose cleaners. Floor cleaners. Fabric softener. Fill the bottle halfway, top it off with water, shake gently, and keep using it. You have just doubled the life of every one of those products at zero additional cost.
Manufacturers design these products concentrated partly because concentration is genuinely useful — but also because a thick, rich lather or a strong-smelling cleaner feels like it's working harder. That feeling is largely psychological. A diluted dish soap still cuts grease. A diluted shampoo still cleans your hair. A diluted all-purpose cleaner still sanitizes your counter. The dirt doesn't know the difference.
The savings are immediate and ongoing. If you buy a bottle of dish soap for three dollars and it normally lasts three weeks, diluting it makes it last six. That's one small habit that cuts your household product spending in half across the board, every single week, without changing anything else about how you live.
27. Freeze everything you can.
Bread about to go stale? Freeze it. Bananas getting too ripe? Freeze them for smoothies or banana bread. Bought meat on sale? Freeze it. Fresh herbs about to turn? Chop them, put them in an ice cube tray with a little water or olive oil, and freeze them into cubes you can drop directly into cooking. Leftover tomato paste, coconut milk, or broth? Freeze it in ice cube trays. The freezer is one of the most powerful frugal tools in your kitchen and most people use about a third of its potential.
28. Stop buying greeting cards.
A greeting card costs four to eight dollars, gets read once, and gets thrown away. A handwritten note on pretty paper, a card you made yourself, or even a heartfelt text costs nothing and is often more meaningful than a mass-produced card anyway. Over the course of a year, between birthdays, holidays, and occasions, the average person spends fifty to a hundred dollars on greeting cards. That's real money for something that ends up in the recycling bin.
29. Use white vinegar as fabric softener.
Pour a small amount of white vinegar into your washing machine's fabric softener compartment instead of commercial softener. It softens clothes, removes soap residue, and eliminates odors. Your laundry will not smell like vinegar when it comes out — the scent completely rinses away. Commercial fabric softener is expensive, leaves a coating on fabrics over time that reduces absorbency, and is completely unnecessary when vinegar does the same job for pennies.
30. Make your own vegetable broth from scraps.
Keep a bag or container in your freezer and toss in vegetable scraps as you cook — onion skins, celery ends, carrot peels, herb stems, garlic skins, mushroom stems. When the bag is full, cover the scraps with water in a large pot, simmer for an hour, strain, and you have free homemade broth. Store-bought broth costs two to four dollars a carton. This version costs nothing because it's made entirely from things you were already throwing away.
31. Switch to bar soap.
Liquid body wash is mostly water in expensive packaging. A good bar of soap costs a fraction of the price per use, lasts significantly longer, produces far less plastic waste, and cleans just as well. The same applies to bar shampoo and bar conditioner, which have become much more widely available and work beautifully once your hair adjusts to them.
32. Eat your pantry down before grocery shopping.
Once a month or so, do a dedicated pantry and freezer meal week where you build your meals entirely around what you already have on hand rather than shopping for new ingredients. Most households have enough food stored to last several days to a week without a grocery run. This practice reduces food waste, saves money, and forces creative cooking with what's already there. It's also genuinely satisfying in a way that's hard to explain until you try it.
33. Turn off lights and unplug things you're not using.
Devices left plugged in draw what's called phantom power even when they're turned off — phone chargers, televisions, gaming consoles, small appliances. It adds up to a meaningful amount on your electric bill over the course of a year. Making it a habit to unplug things you're not actively using, and turning off lights when you leave a room, is one of those frugal practices that requires zero spending and very little effort once it becomes automatic.
34. Make your own flavored water instead of buying drinks.
Sodas, sparkling waters, juices, sports drinks, and bottled teas are expensive and mostly unnecessary. A pitcher of water with sliced cucumber, lemon, mint, or berries costs almost nothing and is genuinely refreshing. If you love sparkling water, a one-time investment in a home carbonation device pays for itself within a few months compared to buying canned or bottled sparkling water regularly.
35. Re-wear clothes before washing them.
Most clothing does not need to be washed after a single wearing unless it's visibly soiled or sweaty. Washing clothes less frequently extends their life significantly, reduces your laundry load, saves water and energy, and means your wardrobe stays in better condition longer. Jeans, sweaters, pajamas, and casual tops can often be worn multiple times between washes. This is not about being unhygienic — it's about not over-washing things that don't need it.
36. Learn one new skill a year that replaces something you pay for.
Every skill you develop that lets you do something yourself rather than paying someone else is a permanent financial asset. Basic sewing and mending. Simple home repairs. Cutting your own or your family's hair. Basic car maintenance. Growing food. Baking bread. Making your own cleaning and personal care products. Each skill you add to your repertoire saves money every single time you use it for the rest of your life. The investment is time, not money, and the return is permanent.
A Final Word
I've been integrating frugal living into my everyday life for several months now and it's almost become a game. How much can I save doing this verses that. How much can I save by making this instead of buying that. You can take it a step further by creating a journal where you write down how much you've saved and what works.
None of these habits will transform your finances overnight. That's not how any of this works. But frugality isn't about overnight transformation — it's about the slow, steady, deeply satisfying practice of being a good steward of what you have.
Pick three things from this list that feel genuinely doable in your life right now. Do them consistently for a month. Then add three more. Let the habits stack. Let the savings accumulate. Let the mindset shift gradually from one of consumption to one of intention.
What you'll find, on the other side of that shift, is not deprivation. It's clarity. It's the quiet confidence of knowing that you are in control of your resources rather than at the mercy of them. It's the peace of a household that is cared for, a savings account that is growing, and a life that is being lived on your own terms.
That is what frugality actually gives you. And it is absolutely worth it.
Stacy Stephens / Mental Health Counselor • Life Coach • Creator of 'Life in Transformation'