4 Ways to SPEND LESS (EASILY) in 2025: Saving Money with Frugal Living

Here are four ways to spend less. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of a person who tends to adopt an all or nothing mentality when I want to accomplish something. I'm like, I gotta go hard or go home. And in some instances, that works awesome. But in some instances, it is not very productive for me. It's a fail. And I wanted to spare you that all or nothing energy and start thinking about how we can do some small things, small little things to start spending less for better results. Number one, let's start by reducing by one. Some of you are like, but Kate, I like going to the drive-thru and get my coffee. Fine. Kate, I love going out to lunch with my coworkers. Fine. I love going out to dinner. It's my favorite thing to do each week. Fine. You can do some of these things. If you love to go out and get your food out, fine. But subtract one time. If you do it right now, twice a week, still enjoy that one time out, but subtract one. If you go out twice a month and you're like, this is great, take one away just while we're trying to spend less. We just did no spend January as a channel. And that meant we just spent on the essentials and we cut out the extras, which was like a nice 30 day sprint. Some of you have even continued on and are gonna do a no buy year. And if that's your plan, awesome. But for everyone else that's just run of the mill spending, the average person, we're gonna have these expenditures sometimes. We're gonna wanna treat ourselves sometimes. Fine. But just reduce it by one and see how you feel. Say you're that coffee drinker that goes through the drive-thru every single day. Reduce it by one. I'm even gonna say, if you grocery shop twice a week, subtract one and you only go once a week. This has been one of my cornerstones of frugal living, going to the grocery store one time per week. It saves me so much time. It saves me so much energy. It's always that one trip. And these days I go right through the grocery pickup and it has been a life changer. So wherever you are doing things multiple times per week or month, just try subtracting one. Reduce by one and see how that works. Just to get started. You might find, say you're going out five times a week. I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what you're doing in your spare time. But say you're going out five and you subtract one and then you start doing four. Then maybe over a little bit of time, you go to three, you go to two, you go to one. Whatever the thing is that you do that you think you might do a little too much, reduce by one. Don't eliminate it. You're still doing it. You're just doing it a little less. Number two, now this is an oldie but a goodie and it's so relevant right now. I feel like people lately are trying to numb out their feelings with spending. There's a lot going on and I feel like people are stressed, they're overwhelmed and for some, that spending is a temporary relief, a temporary joy. Correct, right? We've all been there. Fill in that cart on Amazon and you're like, oh, I can't wait till this arrives. Even myself, I had three book titles. People have recommended some personal finance books to me that have changed their lives and I'm like, ooh, I'm always open to that. So I'm like, cart, cart, cart. And then I'm like, I know what I really need to do here. Save for later, save for later, save for later. Leave it in the cart for 24 hours. Give it a day because we're feeling that need. We need it, we need it now. I want it now. You know, you know that feeling. We want it now, we want it instantly and it temporarily feeds that need but that will fade most of the time. I save in the save for later. I don't even remember what books I put in there and it's been a couple days. Completely forgot about it. Now, when I get a little time, I'm gonna go back in. I'm gonna check with my local library first to see if those book titles are available so I can just take them out of the library for free, read them, return them. The other thing is I even have gift cards in my Amazon so it was even more like I wanted to just pull the trigger because it would actually be free. Listen, I got other stuff that I need, right? I need other things more than those books right now and I might be able to read them for free and I'll probably check and see if there's a free audio book on YouTube because often there is. So my point is leave it in there. Give yourself a day, give yourself the full 24 hours and then go back and look if it's still nagging at you, you're still feeling it, maybe it's time for that purchase but most of the time for me, like 90% of the time, maybe 95% of the time, I completely forget about it. The juice behind that motivation just fades out because you just want it in the moment and I'm talking about three books here. I know a lot of you put a lot bigger things in those carts and you're ready to spend. If you wanna spend less, give yourself a day, let it sit, let it simmer, go back, see how you're feeling then. Before we get into number three, I wanted to let you know we have a goal on this channel to reach 100,000 subscribers. So if you enjoy this content and you haven't hit subscribe yet, please click subscribe and help us reach our goal. Number three, swap out one spending activity. This is similar to number one but this is a swap, a full out swap. So say you go to the movies at the cinema and you go get popcorn and you do the whole thing, right, maybe some Swedish fish or some Sour Patch Kids. Okay, my mouth's watering. But instead, swap that for a movie at home. You're already paying for Netflix, watch a movie, get cozy on the couch, get the blankets, pop the popcorn, throw in a pizza from the freezer that you bought that one time you were at the grocery store this week and spend less but still have super fun with those that you are doing the activity with. Or choose to swap another activity that is similar but cost less. Another great example is say you wanna go out to dinner with your girlfriends. Now the real motivation probably I'm imagining is you wanna catch up with your girlfriends. You wanna talk to them, you wanna look them in the eye, you wanna give them a hug, you wanna have that social interaction that just feels so good and sometimes it's just tradition to do it over dinner, right? So you can still do it over dinner but just invite them over to your home. Have them over, maybe we do a potluck and make a more financially affordable experience but still getting the experience. Again, most of the time when we're trying to have an experience, it's for the interaction, it's for how you feel. Sometimes we just wanna connect. You don't have to do that at a fancy restaurant. You don't have to go out and have all the drinks and the tipping and all that stuff all the time. If you're looking to spend less, choose a more affordable option. I bet you guys have a ton of ideas with this. Let me know in the comments if you're thinking of something as soon as I'm saying this. You're like, oh yes, movies, dinner. What are other things that you can get the same feeling but without spending so much? So you're just spending a little less but still enjoying, still having fun. We wanna still have fun, right? But what can we do to spend a little less? Number four, and some of you are gonna hate this one and some of you will love it. Make a boring meal from your pantry. Ha ha! You know what a boring meal from your pantry looks like, you all know what this is. Because sometimes you're like, should I door dash? Should we go through the drive-thru and get this? And then you look in your freezer, you look in your pantry and you're like, actually, we do have the ingredients for spaghetti. We have the ingredients for rice and beans. We have the ingredients for a pretty good sandwich. Go for the boring meal and just do it. You know that door dashing is gonna cost you double what it would cost for a boring pantry meal. And I call it a boring pantry meal because it's just the thing you'd rather not have because you think something else sounds better. I'm in this position literally all the time. But sometimes when you just pick that boring meal and then you start cooking it up, you start smelling it and you're like, all right, this is not actually that bad. You add the Parmesan cheese. And then all of a sudden, it's a pretty great meal that cost you a fraction of what you would spend if you would pull the trigger, order that extra food. And it's just like, it's just getting over that moment. It's that moment where you make the decision. It's the moment where you either click or you put down your phone, you open it up, you see what's possible, and you go for that boring meal. And I'm saying boring for fun, but maybe it's not that boring. But compared, compared to Chipotle burrito with guacamole and chips, sometimes spaghetti doesn't sound that exciting. I'm just gonna say it. But it saves tons of money. It will fill you up. And you're using what you've already purchased. A big other cornerstone of frugal living is using up what you have. And sometimes we have so much and we just don't want that. And I get it, I do it all the time. But if you're trying to spend less, go for the boring meal. Try to add your own little flair to it so it's a little bit more delicious. And actually, sometimes I'll just Google. How can I make this better, you know what I mean? And you can get so many ideas to make a boring meal actually pretty great. And again, a fraction of the price. Use up your canned goods. Find ways to use your leftovers in your pantry. Make a little something magical. It'll save you so much money over time. Frugal living is about having fun with the resources that you have and making the most of your time, your money, your energy. I thoroughly enjoy it. And if you watch this channel, you're always looking for other ways and other ideas. So please leave any ideas down below of how you have either tricked your brain to spend less or just like a strategy that you use to spend less. I hope these four have helped today. Try one out, try them all. Don't try any if they're not gonna work for you. Always take what you can from my videos and throw out the rest. Do you, boo. You gotta do what's gonna work for you. Thank you so much for being here. Hit that like button. If you enjoyed this content, it will help get this video to others. And listen, not gonna leave you high and dry here. You want more? I got a video right here for you to watch next. See you next week, guys. Bye.