Frugal Way - Living well within your means

Being frugal isn’t something that everyone look forward to, but there are many ways to cut back on spending and live a more frugal lifestyle without being so hard on yourself or living

Frugal living will help you spend less than what you earn and don't splurge on useless items or expensive ones when a much cheaper alternative is readily available.

Here are some basic tips to live frugal.

Eat out less. Eating out is more expensive than cooking your own food aside from being cheaper, you are also sure what you eat is properly cooked and healthier. Restaurants are expensive, including fast-food (not to mention the health hazards).

Plan ahead. You can create a menu for 2 weeks so you can prepare and buy your groceries every 2 weeks and not every week. Save trip and gas going to the grocery store. Take the time to clip coupons for the grocery items that you buy regularly and shave an easy 20 percent off of your bi-montly grocery bill. You can also search for coupons online and just print it out.

Arrange your errands. Reduce your fuel cost by grouping your errands and plan which one to do first and only drive when you need to. For even more savings, consider biking or walking when you don't have far to go.

Car pool. Join or create a car pool with the ever increasing gas prices everyone is looking for some ways to save gas. You'll save more than half on gas bill than if you use your car to work everyday. Let's say you have 3 friends who travel the same route everyday within your area. Each person will use their car once a week alternately and the other 3 will hop in. You can have Friday as a free day. This way you only use your car for 2 days the most going to work instead of 5 hence giving you a savings of at least 60 percent on gas bills.

Turn off the lights. Most of us leave the lights open unnecessarily forgetting that it consumes electricity far more than we expected. Make a habit to turn off those lights and watch your electric bills go down.