There comes a time in everyone’s life where you’ve got to get smart with your money. Pinching the pennies is hardly the most exciting thing you’ll have to do but sometimes it is pretty necessary. The fortunate side of this is that you don’t need to lock your cash away in a safe and throw away the key. The trick is to make sure that you’re getting as much as you can out of the money that you have. Here are a few simple ways to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your money.
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frugal
Everybody knows that buying things that are cheap is much better than buying things that are expensive, right? Well, not exactly. What you need to understand is that there is a difference between being frugal and being cheap.
The biggest problem that people have is they get these two definitions mixed up and it makes them look bad. You are being cheap when you spend very little but in doing so you sacrifice quality. You are being frugal when you are spending very little but you are getting good deals on exceptional products. For example, if you search cheap London hotels, frugal folks will find great deals on really nice hotels. Every one knows that traveling in Europe can be expensive, however, if you are willing to do a little leg work, you can really find some amazing deals online without having to sacrifice quality. Alternatively, cheap customers will end up in a dumpy hotel that is uncomfortable and perhaps even unsanitary. Frugal customers will have gone online to a website like Priceline.com or Travelstay.com and got a great room for the same price as the cheap customer, but will be staying in a comfortable, clean room. So you see there is definitely a big difference between being cheap and being frugal. Below are some more examples to drill home the point:
In the wake of the financial crisis, it’s no surprise that people have been looking to save money wherever possible. For the majority of people this has meant cutting back on a few luxuries and trying to shave a few pennies off day to day costs, whilst a minority have cut costs by accidentally (or intentionally) committing insurance fraud.
The irony is, however, that the easiest ways of saving money at the moment are being blindly ignored by the majority of the population. Recent research suggested that an embarrassing 17% of people have chosen to change financial providers in order to get a better deal.
Ever since I started this blog, I have been preoccupied with jotting down ideas about earning extra money or being frugal whenever I hear about them or experience them firsthand so that I can share them on this blog. Sometimes I think of myself as the Frugal Queen and wonder if maybe I am a bit extreme, but I guess it all boils down to the fact that I work really hard for the money I earn, and as a Canadian I pay a lot of tax, so I want to make sure that the money I spend is being stretched to its limit. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that.
To further emphasize my frugal queeniness ( I know that’s not a word!), I want to tell you about my experience eating breakfast at McDonald’s. Once a year for some reason I crave McDonald’s. I am not sure why, but I always do, and when I finally give in to my temptation and eat there, I end up feeling ill for a few hours, and then I regret spending my money on something that makes me sick.