Environmental Impact Of Frugal Living
Frugal living makes it possible to live on less. I’m not talking about sacrificing; I’m talking about being more intentional with your money. You direct your money to the things that are important to you. There are many benefits of frugal living. Frugal living helps you enhance self-control because you wait until you can afford it before you buy.
You learn how to save money, how to make and maintain a budget, and you know how to use a spending journal. When other people say it’s just a few dollars and it’s not worth me worrying about. You understand that a few dollars here and there can become a very significant amount of money.
Frugal living will also help you save more for retirement or early retirement.
People that live frugally use less electricity and water—saving them money.
They also buy used when possible. Manufacturing requires lots of raw materials, electricity, and other products. By recycling and reusing, you are helping to save the environment.
Yes, saving money is nice, but there’s one benefit few people think about the Environmental Impact Of Frugal Living. Keep reading to learn more.
Frugal living is good for the environment because you consume less electricity, water, and raw materials used in manufacturing.
How Does Frugal Living Help The Environment?
To save money, frugal people use less water and electricity and buy used, and buy used when they can. Using less is good for the environment.
Energy-Efficient Appliances
Energy-efficient appliances use technologies that require less electricity to operate. Initially, they are more expensive, but you can quickly recover the extra money you spent using and maintaining the appliance correctly.
Most energy-efficient appliances can save you thirty percent.
This is a partial list of energy-efficient appliances.
- Refrigerator
- Clothes dryer
- Dehumidifier
- Washing machine
- Water heater
- Ceiling fan
- Smart thermostat
- Freezer
- Heat pump
- Combo washer dryer
Drive Less And Drive Efficiently
Drive less meaning putting fewer miles on the car. Cars are expensive. You have car insurance, maintenance, and gasoline.
You can save money on gas by driving less and more efficiently. Some people drive everywhere they go. Some of that driving is optional. You could walk or ride a bicycle.
There are times when you need to drive. It would be best if you could do all your running around in one trip.
You could take the kids to school, go home and get your shopping bags and go shopping, put food away, go to the gasoline station for gas, and go home. Then you could visit your friend and go home. You get the point.
A better way would be to time your schedule to your appointments and do all your driving from one place to another in an organized manner. You want to conserve fuel.
Dive Efficiently
Where will you go and what do you need to take?
Find the things you will need: a shopping bag, your driver’s license, money, or other items. Gather them for your trip.
Driving Directions
Be careful as you drive, yes, watch out for the other guy.
You need to drive in a logical order. Don’t zig-zag through town.
It’s best to drive in a circle and not backtrack. You will need to backtrack some but minimize it.
Conserve The Warm Air In The Winter.
In you live where the winters are cold, take corrective action to keep the warm air in the house where it belongs—not leaking out of the house.
Things to do to keep the warm air in the house
- Insulate your house
- Caulk around the windows and doors
- Install weather guard around the doors
- Keep the doors and windows closed
- Set the thermostat down a few degrees
Use Air Conditioning Conservatively
To keep your home’s temperature comfortable, use the same steps as you would to conserve the warm air in the winter, with two differences.
Use fans to cool
Set the temperature up a little, using less electricity.
Stop Wasting Food
Most of our food is processed, meaning it’s caned, put in bags, bottled, or other containers, which takes resources.
Another issue is having the food delivered to factories processed, and later sent to the store.
When you waste food, not only are you disposing of food, but the labor and materials involved in making it available to you.
Wasting food is a triple loss for the environment.
The food is not usable.
The resources need to make the food available to you
Transportation costs
Stop Consuming
We can’t stop consuming altogether, but we can reduce our footprint substantially. There are things we can do to have a less negative impact on our environment.
Buy used when you can. Everything manufactured uses raw materials, wood, metal, water, electricity, and more. Every time we make something, we use natural materials, which impacts our environment. To have less impact on our environment, buy used. You can buy used clothes, furniture, automobiles, almost everything.
Take it one spet further and buy durable, not single-use.
Cleaning Products
Cleaning products are expensive. And it takes a lot of materials to make and ship them. Then there’s the added danger to the environment because these materials are in large quantities and dangerous to people, plants, and animals.
Here is another environmentally friendly tip use old clothing for rags. I may need to be more upfront about this. After a piece of clothing is no longer good enough to wear. (too many holes, irreparable, threadbare)
Cut them up and use them for rags.
Stop using paper towels.
The environmental impact of frugal living is all around us.
One more example.
Don’t use their container when you go to Starbucks or anywhere for your beverage. Bring your own. Of course, if drinks come in a bottle sold by the store, your only choices are to buy or don’t buy. But you can frequently buy a fountain drink instead of a bottled one. You can use your cup instead of their cup.
Every little bit helps
Conclusion
Yes, you can save money by living frugally.
The environmental impact of frugal living needs to be recognized. Frugal living is not just a way to save money but also a way to save the planet. Using energy-efficient equipment and household appliances and being cautious with how you can for things will go a long way to help slow down the damage we are doing to the planet.