10 Ways to Start Living the Frugal Life

Welcome to the Greening of Gavin!

As I mentioned in the post titled “Frugal vs Green“, the two choices are somewhat compatable. So to take the frugal theme further, I beleive that these 10 steps have helped us reach both of these goals. They will not only help you reduce your environmental footprint, but save you money as well.

1. Create and Maintain a Household Budget

Creating a budget may not sound like the most exciting thing in the world to do, however it is vital in keeping your finances and your life under control.  You can’t be Frugal or green if your finances are out of control.  I have not yet written about how we budget, so this will be the first new post on my to-do list.  However, I did write a post about “Seriously Saving Money“

2. Make friends with your local library

Libraries are great places to visit.  Please read this post titled “Libraries are Cool and Free”

3. Cook at home, and avoid takeaways

Checkout my series about my 160km diet and how we lived locally as much as we can.  This includes many great recipes for seasonal fare.

4. Plan your trips

What I mean by this is don’t spend all day driving around running errands, when a well planned trip can achieve the same outcome.  You spend less petrol if you drive, or energy if you ride a bike.

5. Make your own cleaning products

I use bicarb and vinegar for most cleaning duties, and we make our own soap from vegetable oils and lye.

6. Take public transport
Public transportation is cheaper and produces far less carbon emissions than a car.  You can read about my thoughts about the cost difference of the two at this post titled “Peak Oil in the Media and Raising Peak Oil Awareness (Kind of)”

7. Reuse
I built a chook house from disguarded materials, and reused some old studs to make a wicking bed.  We try and think of a use for most things before we consider recycling it.

8. Grow some of your own foodI have an extensive food garden, including 8 vegetable beds, and 26 fruit trees.

9. Turn off a light

We practice energy efficiency, and here is a post on how to reduce your electricity consumption in a phased approach.  The post is titled, “Eco House Challenge Electricity 1 and Eco House Challenge Electricity 2”  We also make most of our own electricity with 16 solar panels on our carport roof.

10. Visit an Op or Thrift shop

A visit to an op shop is like going back and becoming a kid in a lolly shop all over again.  Most things at charity shops and the like are well made (or they would be in landfill), and are cheaper than you can get brand new.  I always find lots of useful stuff whenever I visit Vinnies or the Salvos!

All of the above steps can be frugal and green at the same time, with each one of them being achievable within a short time frame. Hey, if I can do it, anyone can. The only piece of advice I will give is that you should not try and tackle all of these steps at once! Maybe two or three, but try and complete the very first step of budgetting, and the rest will fall into place as you go along.

For those steps that have links, please feel free to ask questions, with one proviso. Instead of posting the comment on the original post, please comment with your questions on this one only. This way, we can share all of the answers with all readers. Sharing knowledge is a powerful tool, and I love to share skills and things that I have learnt on my journey towards a sustainable lifestyle.

For the few steps that I have not written anything previously, I will, over the next week or so, fill in the gaps with posts targeting that specific step.

Now, a bit about navigation around the site. Basically, what you see is what you get. The main blog themes are located on the title bar above, the tutorials and YouTube videos are on the right sidebar, as is the archive of all my posts. If you want to start from the very begining (there are over 750 articles), go to the archive and work your way forward.

It has been a fantastic journey as I strive to green up my life and that of my family’s.  It is far from being over, and we enjoy every single moment on this Earth of ours.  As long, of course, as we treat it with respect and make it a better place for our children and future generations to come.

Enjoy!