by R. M. Gardner

Created on: November 17, 2008   Last Updated: January 08, 2009

Having a frugal lifestyle doesn't mean being cheap, far from it. It means spending your money wisely and controlling waste. While there are a multitude of ways to trim costs, they all boil down to a few key principals and standards you must be willing to live by. Wealthy people become wealthy not by wasting money, but by maximizing value. Some, but certainly not all, are listed below.

Buy what you know you need, not what you think you need. We've all heard about not shopping when we're hungry as we tend to over spend, the same thing goes for adhering to a shopping list. Both are sound advice, but taking it one step further, shop to a menu. If you plan out your meals for a week or two you can itemize only those products that you will actually need. This can drastically reduce expenditure because it follows a specific plan and isn't based on guess work. Nothing is worse than buying fresh vegetables because you think you're going to need them only to have them spoil because you just didn't get around to preparing that salad. If salad is on Tuesday's menu, then nothing goes to waste.

Know how much you're really paying. Just because something is on sale doesn't mean it's the most economical item on the shelf, and that goes for the products with coupons, too. I've stood in the supermarket comparing an item with a fifty cents off coupon and another brand that's on sale, only to find that neither of them were the best deal because a third option had a better unit price. The unit price is usually broken down by the ounce and is in fine print on the price tag adhered to the shelf. The point is, shop with a calculator, it speeds up the time it takes you to work out the most economical unit price.

Energy conservation is simply avoiding waste, and of course the less you waste, the more money you save, and you're also doing something for the environment, too. If you don't already have energy efficient light bulbs, you should invest in them as soon as you can. You shouldn't have to purchase the ones at $6.00 a piece. Home Depot, Lowes, or even the dollar store sometimes have these bulbs at $8.00 for a pack of five. I've used these bulbs in just about every place I can get away with for about the past three years. I've only had to replace two and one of those was because the kids got a little too energetic in the house one day and smashed it. Within the first month I saw tangible savings on my electricity bill. But again, frugality is the avoidance of waste so make sure energy

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