A Frugal Lifestyle For A Happy Family Life

Leading a frugal lifestyle as a single is pretty easy. After all it’s only you who has to make the decision to live a simpler life whilst saving money for your future.

But what happens if you have a partner or harder still a family, including children who’s concept of money is completely foreign to them. Well I won’t pretend that it will be easy but I will say that without the whole family all pulling in the same directions and aiming for the same goals, your chances of living a frugal lifestyle will be impossible.

Our aim here is to take you through some steps which will help you to ascertain just which areas of the family need convincing that frugality is a good idea and how to go about it.

Where to start towards a frugal lifestyle together.

Your first step is to sit down with your partner and discuss your attitudes towards money and how both of you have managed your budgets up until now. It is amazing how many people have never had this discussion and leave the family finances to wander along for years with no real direction, leading to possible arguments in the future.

You will also need to find out how both of you have managed your finances up until now, if you have been together for some time, this is a good way to evaluate your current situation. These are just a few questions to both ask yourselves:

• Do you both have credit cards and if so which ones?
• How much cash do each of you spend each week and what on?
• How do you record your spending i.e., on paper, computer etc?
• Do either of you have any outstanding debts?
• Are there any saving accounts?

It is also important to talk about how you feel about money and your attitudes towards it. For instance one of you may be quite penny pinching, whilst the other has quite a casual approach to money. This way compromises can be made to balance out each other’s spending.

Identify the benefits of frugal living and setting goals.

Talking about just why a frugal lifestyle would be a good decision for your family, and highlighting all its benefits, is the best way to get your partner to become motivated and a true convert to the frugal way of life.

Setting goals is also a good incentive. Write your goals down on a large piece of paper and fix it to the fridge door or other prominent place as a constant reminder.

Some of the most popular goals are:

• Saving for a holiday
• Getting married
• Buying a new home
• Retirement plans
• Getting out of debt
• Providing for your children’s future

Having goals that the whole family can see and benefit from will help focus everyone to work towards the common good rather than just for themselves. For instance the next time you want to buy a totally unnecessary luxury item, you will think of those goals and how you would be letting everyone down. You might feel a little sad for a nano second about not buying the goodie, but that will be followed by a good positive feeling of how strong you are and how you are helping the family reach their targets.

Getting the children on board

Young Children If you have children you will already know just how hard it is to get them to understand that money doesn’t grow on trees and that you have to work for it.

I am a true believer that you should be honest with your children from day one and not try to cosset them in any way. I think that in the long run life will not seem so hard or unfair to them if they have a solid understanding early on about how the world ticks and the value of things.

Here are a few tips on how to get your children to understand the value of money and a frugal lifestyle:

• Always involve them in any buying decisions for large expensive items for the home and explain to them why these things cost so much and their value.

• Get them to plan the weekly shopping list and get them to compare one brand to another. Show them the shopping bill, so that they appreciate how much it costs to buy food etc.

• Explain to them how many hours of work you have to do and for what money.

• Give them a small amount of pocket money every week in exchange for some little job around the house.

• Give them a piggy bank and encourage them to save their money, so that they can buy their own things.

These methods will give them a sense of responsibility and an understanding of the value of money.

Show them alternative ways of shopping i.e. take them to charity shops and car boot fairs. I will always remember my nieces eyes lighting up when she realised she could buy far more toys with her money from a second-hand shop.

Teenagers If you have older children then it is also important that you sit down with them and explain to them about what the goals of the family are and how a frugal lifestyle will enable you to achieve those goals, and how they themselves will benefit.

By involving them, they are far more likely to respect and understand why they cannot have everything they want when they want it.

Getting teenagers to understand the value of money can sometimes seem like an impossibility, especially when advertising every day constantly bombards them. A good way to instil money values in them and also to start them on the road of a frugal lifestyle by budgeting is:

• Work out how much money you spend on them a week on items such as makeup, clothes, CD’s, going out etc.

• Then give them all the money in one go, explaining to them that you will not be giving them any more for anything at all and that it is up to them to spend this money wisely.

Be prepared however for some terrible tantrums for the first few weeks when they come screaming to you when they realise that they have spent all their money and now can’t afford to buy more telephone credit. Be strong and don’t give in, they will soon learn to budget their spending and have a greater understanding of just how much they are spending and why being frugal with their money helps them to get what they need.

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