Simple Frugal Living Ideas & Tips for Everyday Life
Sustainability and frugal living ideas go hand-in-hand and it’s a lifestyle that can be enjoyed anywhere you live.
First and foremost, incorporating frugal living ideas does not mean being cheap or that you have to do without anything, it means finding a better, more cost-efficient way of obtaining what you want.
Frugal Living Ideas and Tips
Take a look at these simple ways to start living a more frugal and sustainable lifestyle today! And that leads us to everyday sustainable living – finding a more cost-efficient way for everything we do is good for our planet and future generations. Read on for more tips on sustainable living.
Recycling, upcycling, reusing, reducing, repurposing, and growing some of our food is both frugal and sustainable. Using less and growing more is something we can strive to do everyday. Try these tips to get you started.
Tried and True
By now everyone knows to turn off the lights when leaving a room and to not let the water run while brushing teeth. These are a couple of tried and true things we can do everyday to help reduce our usage of natural resources.
Look for ways to use less of everything everyday. Walk or bike instead of drive; combine multiple errands in one trip to save fuel. Try to carpool to work. Buy items in bulk to reduce packaging and reduce the amount of trash generated by your household. Find new use for items before they get tossed out……something lsimple like making your own homemade mouthwash.
Off-Grid Living
Consider using alternative forms of energy, like solar or wind power, to supply the electricity needed in your home. Most people are not ready for a complete off-grid lifestyle; this reduces the amount of natural resources used by your household by supplementing power usages with solar or wind power.
Consider some of these simple yet practical money saving ideas and resource saving ideas!
The up-front cost is offset by the money saved on consumer electricity from your local power company. When you generate more electricity than needed for your household, the extra can be sold to the power company for a profit.
Rain Barrels
Rain barrels are a great way to harvest rainwater for multiple uses. Water the garden, lawn, and livestock for free with the water captured from rainwater run-off from the house roof.
A water catchment system can be as small or large as your property will permit. Even an apartment dweller can catch a bowl of rainwater on the balcony to water houseplants.
The rainwater if free and sustainable, plus it’s better for the plants than tap water.
Consider drilling a well on your property. This might be is a feasible option, to eliminate the water bill and have fresh clean water on your property.
Home Entertainment Ideas
Simple and frugal living can be as easy as learning ways to keep busy, active and entertained with life skills. Planting a garden, learning how to cook and bake, being more sufficient are all great ways to stay active!
Growing Food
Grow some food. Whether it’s 1 tomato plant or 100, grow something to eat. It’s a skill that everyone needs to learn; learn to save money, eat better, and be kind to the planet.
Growing food in a distant location and having it trucked in to the local supermarket uses fossil fuel and increase air pollution. The chemical used to raise the distant produce also pollutes our waterways and our bodies.
Growing food and gardening is a great way to get kids involved in food production. There is the standard method of in-ground gardening and raised bed gardening, but you may want to consider vertical gardening, aquaponics, hydroponics, or vermiculture as alternative methods to grow food.
Make sure to check out the top 10 fastest growing vegetables. Also, take a look at the top 10 vegetables that will grow in the shade! No room for a garden consider growing plants in containers on your porch, deck, steps or in containers.
Gardening also improves the landscape; by improving soil structure, fertility, reducing air and water pollution (for organically-grown gardens), and proving food for the pollinators.
Raise Chickens
Chickens are a reliable source of protein, fertilize, and are organic pest control. Because of their multi-function and minimal maintenance, raising chickens is essential for frugal and sustainable living. Start with a small coop and a couple of laying hens. Then when you’re comfortable, enlarge the coop and add a rooster and more hens.
Soon you’ll have plenty of eggs, baby chicks, manure for the garden, and a reduces bug population. Chickens are kept well-fed with vegetable scraps from the garden and bugs from the yard.
Start Today with More Sustainable Living
Most importantly, taking small changes in your daily living can have a huge impact. Whether you start to recycle more, reuse items again by upcycling and repurposing or grow some of your own food; these are great way to be more frugal and sustainable in your everyday life.
Use less and grow more is something we can all work on to better our families, communities and world for more sustainability!
Finally: Remember the 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!
