Frugal Living For Single Moms: Plus 21 Ways To Save Money

There are 11,016,000 single-parent families. Single moms are the head of the majority of them – 80%.

No young woman grows up thinking, I’ll get married and have children, my husband will divorce me or die, and I’ll need to raise my children alone. But it happens… There are many mothers raising children alone. The financial responsibility for their families falls directly on those single moms….

Spoiler alert: There are organizations whose purpose is to help single mothers. Check out the link in the section “Help With Living Expenses And Education” close to the bottom of this article, “single mothers.”

I wrote an article to help single mothers to survive. Read it; It will help you and give you new ideas.

I hear some single mothers say that managing money isn’t important. They live on one paycheck and don’t have enough to manage. This isn’t true. If you have money, you need to manage it. There’s no other way to get ahead. In fact, if you don’t manage your money, you could find yourself in a real financial bind.

Frugal living for single moms is essentially the same as anyone else, except you are raising children alone.

For some reason, people associate frugal living with sacrifice. Let me debunk this myth right now. Frugal living is about what you want from life; it’s planning and working and saving to accomplish it. The planning will allow you to save for things you need and want. Because you can pay for these things with cash, you won’t be going into debt.

Sacrifice: You’re not really sacrificing. You’re making a trade. When you live frugally, you’re trading something now for something in the future.

Just as a side note, If you would like to be a rich single mom, read my article “can I be wealthy as a single mom.” The short answer is yes, you can.

Frugal living for single moms

You need to be frugal, which has a changing meaning. As you accomplish one thing, you move on to another. Initially, you may need to save for your emergency fund and become debt-free.

And a few upcoming events. Eventually, you’ll start saving for the things you want that are important to you.

Being frugal is a “growing into” situation. You need to do certain things to become ready.

Living Frugally

Before I get to the part of frugal living for single moms, we need to cover some basics of frugality. Being thrifty is being intentional with your money. You don’t allow your money just to slip away. You assign every dollar a task, and that’s where the money goes.

If you are staring off like most people, you don’t have much money. You can improve your situation by starting an emergency account. As the name implies, it’s for emergencies only. More about this later.

Become debt free. You’ll have more disposable income to spend and save. Being debt free is another tenant of frugal living. Yes, more about this later.

The frugal mindset

A frugal mindset is being mindful of your money. You think about your money and what you want it to do for you. You make plans for your money. You live on a budget. You make sure you are making plans for the life you want.

Budget

We’ve all heard of budgets. Living on a budget allows you to plan where your money goes. Think of a budget as a road map for your money. You know where you want to go. Your budget is the route.

You use a budget because you don’t have an endless money supply. A budget (will save you money) will allow you to optimize the money you have and will receive in the future. Giving you the ability to move towards building the life you desire.

Spending Journal

A spending journal is very useful. You can find waste and change your spending habits to save or redirect what you were wasting.

The idea of a spending journal is to fill it out every time you spend money. This should include cash, checks, debit card, and credit cards. After you are done shopping, getting gas for the car or lawn mower, paying dues, or anything you spend money on, take a minute and write it down.

At the end of the day, compare how much money you have spent against your budget categories. If you do this daily, you can detect overspending quickly. (not waiting until the end of the month)

Side note: when you first make a budget, you will probably need to tweak it to make it as good as possible. And that’s expected. Also, as time goes bye you’ll find areas that change, and you need to change the amount of money you allocate to specific categories. You will probably notice it in the spending journal if you make your entries as you spend money.

Decrease Your Cost Of Living

There’re many things you can do to decrease your cost of living. Let’s face it you should be able to live on your own.

Finding a roommate that’ll share expenses with you can significantly reduce your cost of living. If you get a roommate, this can be an excellent time to become debt free and save your emergency fund.

Become someone else roommate. Either way, you can save a lot of money.

Move to someplace less expensive.

Become debt free. Get rid of the credit card bills and car payments.

Walk or ride a bicycle to the store or work when possible.

In the summertime, set your thermostat higher in the winter time set your thermostat down lower.

Earn Additional Income

Earn more money. If you need more money, side gigs usually pay better because you eliminate the person between you and the payor. There are many side gigs you can do from home. You can teach English virtually, be a virtual assistant, do medical billing, petsitting. There are a lot of ways to make easy money

To find more ideas, Google “work from home jobs.”

Ways To Save Money

Get your children to help
Learn how to make cheap meals and snacks
Get your children to help you with simple meals
Grow your vegetables.
Eat at home it’s cheaper.
Use leftovers.
Teach your children portion size.
Get creative with snacks.
Stockpile on sale items.
Consider going to the dentist only once a year.
Teach kids to turn off lights.
Don’t go to the movie theater. Stay home and watch TV.
Cut your children’s hair.
Buy clothing from thrift stores and yard sales.
Don’t wash clothing every time you wear it.
Take showers at night, not in the morning.
Turn off the water in the shower while shaving.
Let your bath towel air dry and use it again before the laundry.
Turn lights out in rooms that aren’t occupied.
Don’t buy so many toys and gadgets.
Keep holidays simple.

Single Moms, Invest In Yourselves

If you don’t have a college degree, go back to school. College graduates earn more money than noncollege graduates.

I know you’re probably busy working and raising children. Having a college degree is the number one thing you can do to improve your earning ability.

Earning a college degree is now more convenient than ever with all online classes.

Some organizations will help you finance your college education, and you can graduate studying at convenient times and places for you.

I’ll provide a link in the section below that will help you find resources that will allow you to return to school and much more.

Help With Living Expenses And Education

Everyone needs help sometimes. And there’s nothing wrong with asking for help. With a minimal amount of research, I was able to find an organization that has a lot of scholarships and grants for single mothers.

Conclusion

Frugal living for single moms is essentially the same as anyone else. You need to track and save money. You need to make frugal buying decisions. You need to invest in yourself.