Creative Ways to Stay Frugal Without Sacrificing Quality

There will come a time in your life where you’ll have to cut back on expenses. Living frugally can be a tough thing to do, and there are many people who think that when they downsize that they lose the quality of the products they choose. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to live more frugally without sacrificing quality.  

Recycle

Recycling to help the environment is a great cause. It should be the number one reason that you recycle, but you can recycle your things in unique ways that will save you money. You can try a few DIY projects to turn items you normally recycle into things you can use around the house. This trick works best when you have experience with DIY projects. The more experience you have the last quality you’ll be sacrificing.  

Use Store Brands

If you really want to cut back on expenses, look into buying generic brands. It doesn’t have to replace all of your groceries and non-perishables, but there are products that offer the same quality as name brand products. Things like sugar, flour, and paper products usually have the same quality no matter what type of brand they have. Generic brands are just more affordable.

Use Expensive Brands for Long-Time Items

You want to look into dishing out more cash for items that you’re going to use over a long period of time. These items include specialized clothes, like outdoor hiking gear, appliances you use around the house, or a mattress that will last you years. Affordable prices can be appealing but deceiving when it comes to these products. You always want to do your research on the brand that’s offering the product and inspect the product.  

Shop in Advance

When you go out shopping, you want to shop in advance. What that means is that you need to buy your clothes when they are out of season and affordable. Remember whenever when the demand for a product is low, the price of the supply also comes down. Shopping in advance for a wood floor cleaning company is another example of keeping up a frugal lifestyle. Instead of waiting for your floor to become worn down and needing to be replaced, routine cleaning and maintenance will help extend its life.

Couponing

Using coupons can really help you save money and allows you to buy name brand products (if that’s a factor you won’t compromise on). A bunch of stores offers exclusive coupons for the products they sell which means you can save at your favorite stores.

Go Natural

There are some things where going natural is actually going to be cheaper and even better for you. It’s no secret that pharmaceuticals can be costly, and ultimately, they are bad for your liver and kidneys. Instead of taking things like acetaminophen, switch to a natural analgesic like Kratom.

Check the Reviews

There are plenty of product and service review sites out there nowadays that offer their insights for free. These reviews can help steer you toward more affordable services, like web hosting with low monthly costs or beard grooming trimmers for the gentleman on a budget.

Have Fun—At Home

Of course, the best way to be frugal is to avoid the costs of going out. When it comes to recreation, there are plenty of ways to have fun at home. Friv online gaming is a great place to start and you don’t even need a gaming console to play! Just open up your laptop and play away.

Buy Used

• Books and Textbooks
  
  Struggling college students and book lovers know that the price of books and textbooks can be ridiculous. There are rarely differences between new and used books. Trusted sites like Amazon allows for verified resellers to sell you a used book for a quarter of the price of a new one. You can find books at library-sponsored book sales, thrift stores, and rummage sales.
  
  Using these methods to buy textbooks can literally save you hundreds of dollars. There are many websites that are dedicated to just re-selling textbooks.
  
• Appliances
  
  
  Buying used appliances can get a bit dicier. Books come as they are. The damage is easy to see, but appliances could have many serious problems that you won’t notice until much later. There are shops that sell used or refurbished appliances that offer a warranty period. This period is usually 60 days or less.
  
  You can also try your hand at buying used items off of resale websites, but you want to be careful. Be sure that you test out the item before agreeing to purchase anything.
  
  If buying used appliances isn’t your thing, you can find almost new appliances at cheaper prices if you visit the returns desk. Returned items aren’t on display at stores so if this option appeals to you, you’re going to have to ask a sales manager. While people do return items when there are problems with them, items are usually returned because the person realized they don’t need them.   
  
• Designer Jeans Designer clothing is a luxury that everyone would like but there are a lot of people who feel like they’re products that are out of their price range. Even for those people who can afford designer jeans can benefit from buying them used. There are people who are wary of used clothes, but there is no need to be. Stores that sell designer jeans have quality control so you’ll be getting the real thing. You’ve also probably have tried on clothes in dressing rooms that many other people have worn before without even thinking about it.    The best place to find the designer jeans that you’ve wanted for so long at an affordable price is to go to thrift stores. You can also find designer jeans on thrift store websites or other resale websites like eBay.