If you want to start living frugally start small.  Use the time you have. You don’t have to spend hours couponing, or making your own yogurt to save money. You set yourself up for failure if you try and incorporate too many changes into your lifestyle at once . Here are some great ways to get started that are simple and take very little time. Any penny saved is a penny earned so don’t get caught up in what you could be doing, rejoice in what you can do.

Start with the tips below then browse through some of my Money Saving Mondays Posts and choose which money saving options are right for your lifestyle.

1-Look at your food budget and figure out (estimating is fine) where you spend the most money on a monthly basis. It might be eating-out, snack foods, for us it was bread and yogurt.

I recommend figuring out one month how much you spend in that one catagory (just write down expenditures for one month before you start). This will give you a starting place so you can be encouraged that what you are doing does make a difference. You can try all, or just one of the ideas to cut expenses in an area. The more you do the bigger results you will see.

2-Focus on cutting costs in this one area only. Below I have some ideas to get you started on ways to cut costs in that one area that don’t take too much time. Be creative (and of course tell me in the comment section what you are doing to give other readers ideas…)

• Glance through the store ads and buy the food in your “catagory” when they are on sale in “bulk” so you are always paying the best price.

• Buy a Sunday Paper and just clip coupons for the snack foods, shop as you normally do, but combine coupons with your sales.
• Find out if you can make that item for cheaper, try it one week and see if it is worth the effort
• Buy in bulk and individually package yourself
• Look online before making a purchase to see if there is a coupon for cheaper (restaurants.com lets you print coupons to restaurants you are going to that day for example)

3-Keep track of your expenditures in just that catagory and see what money you have saved!