Uber Frugal Month: The Ultimate Guide To Saving More Money Than You Ever Thought Possible - Frugalwoods (2024)

You can sign-up for the Uber Frugal Month Challenge any time! We take the Challenge as a group every January and July, but you can start it on your own whenever you’d like. Sign-up in the box below to join the January 2024 Group Challenge!

By taking the UFM, you’re joining hundreds of thousands of fellow frugal sojourners who’ve already taken the Challenge and committed to taking control of their finances. We’ve had Challenge participants from Luxembourg, Prague, the Netherlands, the Seychelles, Egypt, Japan, South Africa, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Germany, Australia, Ireland, England, Wales, Canada, Scotland, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Russia and more! What this tells me is that there are a lot of us who no longer want to be part of the consumer-driven machine. Who want more out of our lives. Who want to be authentic people, not merely consumers designed to spend money.

Our collective goal is to save as much as we possibly can during the Challenge month, but that’s just for starters. The Uber Frugal Month is designed not only to save you money for one month, but to restructure your consumer mindset and ultimately, turn your Uber Frugal Month into an Uber Frugal Life. What I’ve found is that after a month of extreme frugality, it’s unlikely you’ll return to your previous level of spending. Participating in an Uber Frugal Month (UFM)interrupts the cycle of hedonic adaptation and lifestyle inflation that we all fall victim to and instead enables usto discover the peaceful simplicity delivered byfrugality.

Before we get started, be aware that UFM is the equivalent of frugal tough love. Yes, Frugalwoods is a judgement-free zone and yes, I believe there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to frugality and yes, we all have unique circ*mstances and factors at play in our lives. However. The Uber Frugal Month is intended to push your boundaries, stir your emotions, and yeah, possibly make you frustrated. But its frustration with a purpose. You’re expanding your understanding of your finances and–by extension–your life. So don’t short-change yourself; you’ve committed to doing it, now dig deep and really do it!

Homework Time (similar to Hammer Time, but without the dance moves)

Consider this your official UFM rubric, guideline, outline, and to-do list. Pour a glass of seltzer (or wine), snuggle up to your nearest greyhound (or armadillo), open a word document/spreadsheet/notebook (or all three if that’s your jam), and settle in for a financial mapping exercise.

Step 1: Establish your goals.

Write down your answers to the following questions and be as specific as possible. Avoid vague responses such as, “to save more money.” Instead, identify the heart of why you want to save more money and exactly how much money you want to save.

Without an overarching reason or purpose,frugality is tough to maintain.

Goal-setting questions:

  1. Why are you participating in this Challenge?
  2. What do you hope to achieve?
  3. What are your longterm life goals?
    • Where do you want to be in 5 years?
    • In 10 years?
  4. What about your current lifestyle might prevent those goals from happening and what can you do about it?

For more guidance on longterm goal-setting, check out:How I Figured Out What I Want To Do With My Life (And How You Can Too!)

Get Your Partner in on the Action

If you have a partner, it’s ideal to attack this exercise together. If you sense your partner might be resistant, you can blame me.

Tell your parter the following: “I’m doing this Uber Frugal Month Challenge in an effort to maximize our savings and build a better future for our family and, as part of the Challenge, we’re supposed to discuss some questions with our partner. Can we sit down and talk through this? It would mean a lot to me.” I recommend broaching the topic with tasty snacks.

If you’re the frugal half of your partnership and your other half is reluctant to embrace your frugal charms, check out the following for some guidance:

  • Reader Suggestions On: How To Convince Your Husband Or Wife To Be Frugal.
  • This post provides the outline Mr. FW and I use for our most challenging, heated conversations.
  • This post gives some context on how frugality can guide an entire marriage (not a joke): How We’ve Enjoyed Nine Years Of Marriage With Frugality As The Backbone.

Frugality Is NOT Deprivation

The basis for successful, joyful, longterm frugality is a defined life goal(s). The idea is to want more out of life than what you can buy in a store. With that backdrop, we become willing to sacrifice longterm gains for short-term desires. Frugality isn’t miserly deprivation, it’s sheer liberation. We are freed from needing a lot of money, we are freed from competing with other people in a material goods arms race, we are freed from the futile pursuit of happiness through consumerism.

For more motivation and insightinto successful, goal-orientedfrugality, may I recommend:

  • The Joy That Comes When Less Is Enough (this is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. It captures the essence of the happiness and peace that stem from embracing extreme frugality)
  • Strategic Luxury: The Difference Between Frugality And Miserliness
  • Perfection Is The Enemy Of Frugality (a lesson I remind myself EVERY SINGLE DAY)
  • How A Year Of Extreme Frugality Changed Us
  • Is Frugality Sustainable Without A Goal?
  • How I Let Go Of Caring What People Think
  • The False Choices That Steal Our Future

Step 2: Review last month’s spending.

We can’tmove forward if we don’t know where we’ve been. You know how I harp every month on how important it is to track your spending? Here’s why: It is 100% impossible to create a savings plan if you don’t know how much you’re spending. If you haven’t been tracking, fear not frugalyte, now’s the time to start!

I use and recommend Empower for this task because it’s free and easy to navigate. Did I mention it’s free? Go sign-up now if you haven’t already (affiliate link).

When reviewing your past spending, don’t get mad at yourself and don’t get discouraged. You’re participating in this Challenge because you want to improve. You’ve taken the first step towards making smarter spending decisions and frankly, you’re going to rock it. We’ve got ZERO time for whining and moaning (as I tell my children on the regular).

Step 3: Categorize your expenses.

This is another step that’ll be easier if you’ve been using Empoweror another finance tracker. But if you haven’t, it’s OK, you can use a spreadsheet, a piece of graph paper, or the back of a napkin.

This is no ordinary categorizing of expenses, my friends. This is the UFM categorizing of expenses and it goes like this: Fixed Mandatory Expenses vs. Discretionary Expenses.

1) Fixed Mandatory Expenses

These are your cannot change them (easily) expenses. Hint: groceries do not count and you shouldn’t have many items in this category. Fixed mandatory expenses are things like: rent/mortgage, debt repayments, and health insurance. This isn’t to say that these expenses couldn’t change in the future, but they’re pretty darn stable atpresent.

2) Discretionary Expenses

Everything else goes here. Welcome to the murky abyss into which our money mysteriously evaporates. But it is mystery no more: it’s now exposed on your spreadsheet/graph paper/napkin. This is the stuff we’ll frugalize together.

Step 4: Which expenses can I eliminate?

Now that your expenses are divided between Fixed Mandatory and Discretionary, set aside the Mandatory items for the moment (we’ll come back to them later).

Take a good, hard look at your Discretionary list and ask: what can be obliterated?

Hint: this is stuff like take-out, restaurant meals, pedicures, dog grooming, cable. Anything that’s superfluous to your survival needs to go. This is the Uber Frugal Month after all and it’s your chance to try out a lifestyle of extreme frugality. Let go of the unneeded expenses in your life and remind yourself of the goals you set in Step 1.

In addition to deleting expenses,this is an opportunity to simplify your life.

A few years ago, I was stressing over where to find inexpensive makeup. I spent a ton of time trying to piece together coupons and sales, when I had an epiphany: why not just stop wearing makeup?! Instead of struggling to consume something I didn’t need, I stopped needing it. I transformed my outlook on what constitutes a need in my life and did so while livingin the city and working a 9-5 professional office job. I still wear make-up on occasion, but I let go of the idea that I “should” wear it every day.

What in your life can you stop doing and stop needing? We build up so many unnecessary things in our minds as must-haves, when in reality, they’re only weighing us down. For example, if you’re panicking over how to get your favorite cable shows without paying for cable: what if you simply gave up watching those shows? What would happen? What would you do with your time instead?

Here’s a fewposts I’ve written on giving up just such things:

  • The Sweet Synergy Between Simple Living And Saving Money
  • How We Broke Our Eating Out Habit In 9 Steps
  • How We Avoid Cable And Watch Free TV Online
  • Less Makeup And More Confidence: My Frugal Beauty Manifesto
  • Our Approach To Affordable, Responsible Dog Care

Step 5: Embrace the art of substitution.

I’m sure there were items in Step 4 that it pained you to eliminate–pained you to your core. Fear not, we have a frugal solution and it’s called “the art of substitution.” For elements of life that you’d rather not delete entirely, the key is to find their frugal analogue. Substitution is how Mr. FW and live a luxuriously frugal life.

We don’t eliminate the things we love most, we do them for less.

Here’s an example: a prime candidate for substitution is a gym membership. Exercising is a good thing–don’t eliminate it from your life! But, it’s also something you don’t need to pay for. I’ll expand on this example to help jog your creativity for creating your own substitutions.

How we exercise for free:

  • I love yoga and so, I used to volunteer at my yoga studio’s front desk for 30 minutes a week in exchange for free classes. My studio isn’t unique in offering this type of exchange–I’ve heard from friends and readers all around the world who have a similar arrangement with their yoga/pilates/ballet/CrossFit studio. Read more here:How Does Free Yoga Help Our Financial Goals? and also here: Reader Suggestions On How To Exercise For Free (Or Cheap!)
  • When we lived in the city, we took lengthy walks from Cambridge to Boston, around theriver, and up and down the city thoroughfares. Free entertainment and exercise rolledinto one (yes, even in the winter).
  • Alsoin the city, Mr. FW biked to work every day (yes, even in the winter).
  • Now that we live in the country, we hike through our woods almost daily. During thewinter whenwe have sub-zero temps and feet of snow on theground, we put our snowshoes on and bundle the kids intoa sled. Except inthe worst blizzarding conditions, we’re out there on the trail.
  • For indoor exercise, I like free yoga classes on YouTube. There are TONS of free exercise programs online and you can find the style and level that suits you. Another one I like a lot is the 7 Minute Workout (probably because it’s only7 minutes long 😉 ).
  • There’s also the time-honored parent exercise routine of chasing your children around…
  • Mr. FW gets most of his exercise through farm labor–splitting and stacking wood, shoveling snow, clearing trails, etc.
  • If you’re a dedicated weightlifter or avid runner (or rower, etc), consider equipping a home gym with weights and a treadmill–but only if you’re actually going to use them. Craigslist and garage sales are often rife with second-hand exercise equipment you can score for a fraction of the price!

Here are a few other substitution examples:

  • Mr. FW and I love coffee and didn’t want to give it up; so, we found a frugal source for our beans:Is Costco Coffee Any Good? We Bravely Discover (spoiler alert: it is, although we now get inexpensiveorganic Fair Trade coffee from BJ’s since we no longer live near a Costco)
  • We similarly adore seltzer water; and so behold:The Great Homemade Seltzer Discovery of 2015
  • Friendships are important to us; hence:Maintaining Friendships And Frugality andFrugal Hosting Ideas For Hanging Out With Friends

Bottom line: identify what you love, what makes your life fulfilling, and then find cheap–or free–ways to do those things.

Another valuable tactic is the frugal art of barter and trade, which I assure you is alive and well, as evidenced by the outpouring of reader responses I catalogued in this post: How Barter and Trade Enhances Frugality and Community. Frugalwoods readers are bartering and trading for everything from childcare to legal services to home-cooked meals! Need something but can’t pay for it? Barter and trade.

Step 6: Reduce spending on discretionary expenses.

Now’s the time to reduce spending on the things we need to sustain us, but that have wiggle room. My favorite example: groceries! It’s easy to gloss over line items like groceries because they’re necessities. And while yes, food is a requirement, expensive food is not. Since food expenses are one of the most oft-cited reasons by readers for participating in the UFM, let’s dig into some tasty examples. Note that it might take some work to find the cheapest, healthiest grocery options, but once you figure out your frugal system, it won’t take you any more time! It’s a ‘set it and forget it’ type of situation, so don’t fear the cheaper.

We eat organic produce, delicious cheeses, local meats, and more on the cheap. Here’s how:

  • Our Complete Guide To Frugal, Healthy Eating(as the title indicates, this is my MEGApost on frugal food)
  • What Does A Frugal Person Eat?
  • How I Fight Food Waste At Thanksgiving And Beyond (aka you MUST eat your leftovers)
  • Six Things We Never Buy At The Grocery Store
  • Our Frugal Grocery List Revealed
  • Why We Don’t Meal Plan
  • Our Epically Frugal Lunch Recipe (works for dinner too!)
  • Breakfast: The Hidden Destroyer
  • Eat ALL the Things! (aka go through your pantry and eat what you already own)
  • Frugalize Your Groceries

Other opportunities for reducing spending in this category stem from sources you might’ve previously thought untouchable, such as your utilities!

The easiest way to save money on your utilities? Use them less. Our electricity bill is usually quite low since we’re cognizant of how much we use on a daily basis. It’s not some formal, regulated system within our home, but rather an overarching awareness that we apply to how we live. The bonus is that this approach will turn you into an environmentalist! For more tips and insight, please enjoy:

  • You Can’t Buy Your Way To Green: How Frugality Is Environmentalism
  • 11 Frugal Hacks to Stay Warm and Save Money This Winter
  • The Surprising Benefits Of Not Turning On Your Air Conditioning

And another item for this category: Clothes! Clothes! Clothes! Let’s be honest: most clothes-buying is not strictly out of necessity (speaking from personal experience here… ). I was such a rampant clothes horse that I put myself on a clothes-buying-ban that lasted FOUR years. Four years, people. You don’t have to be that extreme, but I’m going to guess you probably have enough clothes in your closet to see you through at least a few months.

Need some clothes therapy? I sure did so I wrote all of these posts:

  • Why I Broke My Three Year Clothes Buying Ban
  • Why I Haven’t Purchased Any Clothes in 2.5 years (and counting)
  • Why I’m Not Buying Any Clothes in 2014
  • What A Year Without Clothes Did For Me
  • Pregnancy Hasn’t Foiled My Clothes-Buying Ban: Here’s How
  • Clothing Care For People Who Don’t Buy Clothes
  • Maternity Clothes Are Like Christmas Trees: The Clothes-Buying Ban Continues

Step 7: Empower yourself to insource!

Identify every line item where you’re paying someone else to do work for you, such as a housekeeper, a lawn care service, dog groomers, hairdressers, dry cleaners, photographers for family photos, home repairs–you get the gist. If you’re serious about taking your frugality to the next level, it’s time to get serious about embracing the awesome power of insourcing.

By doing all of this stuff ourselves, my husband and I reap a four-fold benefit: 1) we save tons-o-money; 2) we learn new skills; 3) we permanently eliminate these expenses from our lives; 4) we grow closer in our relationship.

A few tips forgetting started on your own insourcing journey:

  • How Insourcing Strengthened Our Marriage (no joke!)
  • How I Take My Own Holiday Family Photos (And Make Them Look Good!)
  • How to Give Home Haircuts in 8 Easy Steps
  • Final Frontier Of Frugality: My Husband Gave Me A Haircut
  • 7 Ways to Become A DIY Hero
  • Home Improvement the Frugal Way
  • Extreme Frugal Insourcing: Repairing a Frozen and Burst Pipe with PEX
  • Our Thrifty And Simple Baby’s First Birthday Party

Step 8: Examine your habits.

Spending money is a habit and, like any habit, you have the power to change it. If you don’t like the fact that you rush out the door every morning and buy a $6 latte on the way into the office (that used to be me… ), change it. Make your coffee at home and take it in a travel thermos. If you’re frustrated that your water bill is so high every month, examine how often you’re doing laundry and how long your showers are.

Evaluate your habits: you are what you repeatedly do and in this case, your budget is what you repeatedly spend.

Think through a typical day–a weekday and a weekend day–and write down every juncture at which you spend money. Then, write down solutions to instead save that money. I did this exercise a few years ago and outlined the results in this post: A Day In The Life Of A Frugal Weirdo. By bringing my attention to my daily spending habits, I was able to cut them out of my life permanently. More on this: Put Your Life On Frugal Autopilot

Step 9: Plan ahead.

A LOT of frugality has to do with planning ahead. So many expenses can be avoided by making a plan.

Long-term planning ahead example:

I scour yard sales every summer for stuff for my kids. Since yard sales only happen in the summer here in Vermont (owing to our obscene amounts of snow in the winter), I try to buy everything I THINK they’re going to need for the upcoming year. I do this because used kids’ stuff is plentiful and dirt cheap whereas new kids’ stuff is super expensive.

I buy second-hand snow boots, snow pants, jackets, Christmas dresses, and toys, which I use as Christmas and birthday gifts for both kids. I spend around $100 on used stuff every summer and usually, by the time September rolls around, I have several boxes of things for the coming year. By doing this, I’ve avoided needing to buy new clothes, new outdoor gear, new toys AND new Christmas/birthday gifts for over seven years now!

I also yard sale with my girl friends and we pick up toys and clothes for each other that we know the other needs for her kids. Share your needs with your friends and help each other out! For example, I knew my friend R. needed a size 18 months snowsuit and so, when I happened to find one IN A FREE PILE at a yard sale, I snatched it up for her! Similarly, my friend M. knows that Littlewoods loves Madeline and so she bought a Madeline doll for $1 when she found one at a garage sale.

P.S. YES, I 100% give my daughters used toys for their birthdays and Christmas. I’m sure this will change and evolve as they get older, but it’s a fabulous system so far! Both are THRILLED with their gifts, so we will keep on this train until it doesn’t run any more.

Ongoing planning ahead example:

Cook your meals ahead of time and pop ’em in the freezer. We do not cook every night. NOPE. Mr. FW typically cooks a gigantic batch of chili/soup/Thai curry/chana masala/etc once a week. We then either: 1) eat it all week; or 2) freeze it in portions and defrost other previously cooked meals so we can eat something different every night. By doing this, we avoid the temptation to get take-out or go to a restaurant because… our dinners are already cooked!

Short-term planning ahead example:

Pack your lunch for work the night before. If you’re worried you’ll forget it in the morning? Put your car keys/metro pass on top of it so you can’t leave the house without it. Same goes for kid lunches, coffee thermoses, water bottles, etc. Basically, just take food with you everywhere you go.

The ultimate post on this: How Planning Ahead Saves Us Serious Money

Step 10: If you do buy stuff, get it used (or cheap!).

For things you legitimately need to buy, are you sourcing them as cheaply as possible? The used market–Craigslist, garage sales, thrift stores, and of course the Holy Grail hand-me-downs–are your best bets. Also, join your local Buy Nothing Group–or, if your town doesn’t have one yet–start it! What I like most about shopping used is that I’m usually able to find higher quality, more durable items on the used market than I would if I bought cheap, low-quality new stuff. Plus, it’s more environmentally-friendly! Wins all around.

Need some motivation to start shopping used? May I recommend the following:

  • How to Thrift Like a Rockstar: Plan Ahead, Buy Ahead and Focus on Depreciation
  • How To Find Anything and Everything Used: A Compendium Of Frugal Treasure Hunting(the ultimate guide)
  • The Myth Of The Gross Used Things
  • 12 Ways to Get a Steal on Craigslist
  • Our 12 Tips For Finding Roadside Treasures (aka Great Trash Finds)

For the stuff of lifethat can’t be bought used (toothpaste, dog food, sunscreen), price check to ensure you’re getting the best deal. Everyweek, Mr, FW and I make a grocery and household items list. For anything on our list that I don’t already know the price of, we price check betweenAmazon, Wal-Mart, and BJ’s (affiliate links).

I then purchaseit wherever it’s cheapest. Since stores are unfortunately not uniformlycheapest on every single itemthey sell, I find this strategy to be an effective way of sniffing out the best deals. This takes us maybe 15 minutes a week and it’s well worth it for the savings we reap.

Bonus: if you find price-checking super annoying, it might encourage you to buy less stuff!

Step 11: Banish excuses.

I’m going to bet that for each of the preceding steps, the non-frugal part of your brain reared up with an excuse (I know this to be true because it’s what my brain does ). The Uber Frugal Month challenges you to restructure your ingrained spending habits and it’s probably not going to be easy. Here’s the thing: you can make excuses all day long about why you can’t be more frugal, but at some point, you need to sit down and think through each of your excuses. You don’t have to justify your decisions to me or your friends or anyone else and you don’t even have to share them with the Uber Frugal Month Community. But you do have to be brutally honest with yourself about why you’re spending money.

Changing your spending habits is as much psychological as financial, because how we handle money is largely driven by our emotions.

The actual mechanics of managing money are simple and straightforward. As with most things in our human experience, saving more money entails changing how we feel about our money. So consider this a self-led financial therapy session and do yourself the favor of entering into it with honesty and a desire to change. Let go of defensiveness and knee-jerk excuses.

The two most common excuses I hear for not embracing frugality:

1) Ilive in a high cost of living area!

Having lived in NYC, Washington, DC, and Cambridge, MA, I’ve been there. And I assure you it’s entirely possible to live frugally in the city. Actually, as I outline in this post, it was cheaper for us to live in the city than it is out here in the country! Here are a few inspirational posts for you city-dwellers: How We Live Frugally In The City andThe Ultimate Guide To Frugal Boston Living (works for other cities too, I promise).

2)I have kids!

Me too! It’s certainly more expensive to have children thannot, but this falls into the same category as most other elements of our lives. We can choose to raise our children frugally, or we can choose not to. It’s not quite that simple, but I also don’t think being a parent precludes you from frugality. I will point out that some of the most notorious frugal weirdos have children: me, Mr. Money Mustache, JL Collins, Root of Good, 1500 Days to Freedom… the list goes on.

A few posts for inspiration:

  • Fighting Back Against The Baby Industrial Complex
  • Our Thrifty And Simple Baby’s First Birthday Party
  • How To Fly With A Baby. On An Airplane. By Yourself.
  • How I Make My Own Baby Food and Other Frugal Parenting Tales
  • The Gear You Actually Need For Your Baby (Or The Next Baby Shower You Attend)

Step 12: Consider Major Lifestyle Changes

If you’ve done all of the above, crossed your frugal grocery t’s and dotted your frugal no-eating-out i’s and still can’t save at the level you’d like, something major needs to change.

It’s time to look at your Fixed Mandatory Expenses because at a certain point, you can’t trim around the edges any more. At a certain point, you need a larger reserve to draw from in order to save more.

This, my friends, is the major lifestyle change component of the UFM. These changes are unlikely to happen during the one-month timeframe of the UFM, but you can start considering the below questions as part of the Challenge. As I mentioned in Step 1, if you have a partner, you need to address these questions together.

Here are a few major lifestyle change questions to ask yourself/and your partner:

1) Do you need to earn more?

  • Can you change jobs or advance in your field?
  • Are you interested in taking on a side hustle to supplement your primary income?
  • Should you sacrifice work-life balance in the short-term in order to be promoted at your current job?

2) Would moving help?

  • Is your rent or mortgage draining your reserves every month?
  • Could you move to a lower cost of living area or home?
  • Do you need as much house as you have?
  • Could you consider downsizing or perhaps renting instead of owning?

3) Should you get rid of your car (or one of your cars)?

  • If you live in a city, could you get by without a car and insteadavail yourself of biking, walking, and public transit?
  • Could your family cope withone car as opposed to two or three?
  • Are you paying off an expensive loan? Could you instead find an affordable, reliable used car? Recommended posts:
    • Why We Buy Used Cars and You Should Too
    • Ode To An Old Car: Our Money-Saving Machine
    • Our Frugal Solution To The All-Wheel Drive Conundrum
    • Why We Broke Down And Bought A Used Truck

4) Are you paying to work?

Sounds bizarre, but many of us spend a ton of money in service of maintaining our jobs. No joke! Here are a few examples:

Childcare. It’s exorbitantly expensive and necessary no matter where you live or what method you use (daycare, nanny share, etc). Examine this expense and consider:

  • Do the salaries of both parents effectively outpace your daycare costs?
    • Could one parent stay home with the kids?
    • Can you contrive a creative arrangement with either your current employer or by freelancing/consulting/working from home?
  • In the age of the internet, I no longer think it’s a binary decision to work or not work. If you stay home with kids, you’re not necessarily cut off from the world or from earning money.
  • Sometimes paying for childcare is the best decision for a family. In that instance, make a plan for how you’ll use that money every month once your child(ren) is out of daycare. Make certain that you know what you want to do with this money so it doesn’t evaporate into increased spending. Will this money go towards debt repayment? Towards a down payment on a house? A new-to-you car? Retirement accounts? Investments? Make a plan now so that you won’t be tempted by lifestyle inflation with that influx of cash every month.
  • More here: Childcare: Controversial, Expensive, Complicated, Necessary

Commute. Is your commute so long that you’re spending tons on gasoline, take-out, and other conveniences because your time is so strapped? Could you move closer to your job to facilitate walking, biking or taking public transit to work? Or, could you work from home? If moving isn’t an option, could you find a job that’s closer to your house?

Treating yourself. Do you hate your job? Does this cause you to spend money in order to ease the frustration you feel over your work? Our culture teaches us that if we’ve had a hard day we deserve to treat ourselves–with take-out or a drink at the bar or a new pair of shoes. But all this cycle does is ensure we have to keep working a job we hate in order to treat ourselves to soothe the balm of working a job we hate… For inspiration on breaking this insidious cycle, check out: Treat Yourself? More Like Defeat Yourself!

Conclusion (we’re finally done, I swear!)

I know this was a lot to get through and no small amount of work. But, this work will create the basis for your financial future, which in turn will dictate the type of life you lead. What we’ve discussed today are the mechanics of the UFM. These are the practical steps you need to take in order to save as much money as possible.

Throughout the month, my daily emails are what will keep you in the right frame of mind to accomplish this. As you’ve probably surmised, the most important element of saving money is your own mindset.

You have the power to decide whether or not you’re going to open your wallet and spend money. It’s something wholly within your control. And I, for one, have faith in you.

With that, I hope you find time to reflect on why you’ve chosen to participate in the Uber Frugal Month Challenge. The crux of successful, joyful frugality is spending in service of your goals and on the things that matter most to you.

By identifying what you want out of life and eliminating spending that doesn’t get you to that final destination, you will succeed. I’m so happy you’re and delighted you’re taking the Uber Frugal Month Challenge! P.S. If you haven’t signed-up for the Challenge yet, you can do so in the box below.

What do you need from me for a successfulUber Frugal Month? Let me know how I can help!

Uber Frugal Month Challenge Signup

We all need some encouragement and inspiration! Starting the day you sign up, I'll send you an email a day for 31 days. Each email will have a tip, meditation, or other frugality enhancer.

Uber Frugal Month: The Ultimate Guide To Saving More Money Than You Ever Thought Possible - Frugalwoods (2024)
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