How Can I Be Frugal?

Buy everyday items you use in bulk. Buy the biggest package you can find, which gives you the most for the money. 

Cut out most frozen foods. Some frozen foods make sense, like buying frozen bread dough. It is cheaper to buy three or four unbaked loaves together, than to buy one loaf of bread in the bread section. You can dress up frozen bread dough by rolling it out, brushing it with butter and spreading cinnamon-sugar. Just roll it back up and bake. Voila, you have cinnamon bread. Throw in raisins or pecans for variety.

Buy fewer convenience foods, and more staples like dry beans, rice, fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, milk and butter (store brand.) Buy food in bulk when possible. Forego the nicely packaged pre-made honey butter, mashed potatoes, or other prepared foods. 

Eat out less. If you must eat restaurant food, get the whole meal as a take-out. That saves you from buying pricey mixed drinks, paying gratuities, and buying that fancy dessert you couldn't live without but didn't need.

Instead of going to the theater, buying popcorn and expensive tickets in prime time stream it or watch it on NetFlix later. Maybe the movie won't be "new" when you see it, but you will save a bunch of money. Call the museum or zoo and see if there's any price discounts for certain days of the week.

If you need to buy clothes, avoid any that need to be dry cleaned only. During tough times, shy away from outfits that have special care needs. Go for anything that can be thrown in the washer and dryer.

Use the car less. This is obvious but worth mentioning. Combine trips, so you aren't wasting gas. If your car doesn't require high-octane gas, forget about it. Regular works fine. To save even more money, use public transportation.

Frugal Rules

If you want to have a retirement where you do not need to worry about money, there are two ways to do so. First, save enough money to continue your lifestyle. The reality is that not many of us have done this or are doing this well. The second way is to start to live within or below your means by being frugal. Frugal living is something that you undertake for the long haul.  It isn't something you can pick and choose to do one day and not the next-that is, not if you expect to see progress toward your goal. You do have a goal, don't you? If not, read the final tip here first.  Below are several things you need to keep in mind if you are considering a frugal lifestyle. Not every frugal idea is workable for everyone.

1.   There is a balance between frugality and time that is unique for each person. Some people have time to grind their own wheat into flour and make their own pasta from scratch. Some people only have the time to do simple things.  You don't have to use every idea you hear about.

2.    Start saving your savings.

When you save money, you need to go ahead and put the money in a jar until you have enough to put it in the bank. If you save $20 on a shirt you didn't buy, put that $20 in your jar. If you save $1.59 on groceries, put that money in the jar. Many grocery stores receipts will even tell you how much you save. That makes it easier for you. Spending money you save in one place on something else is still spent money.

3.    Set your goals and stick with them.

You have to have a reason to be frugal. Whether you want to learn to live on a reduced income, get out of debt or go on a cruise, you have to have a goal. Don't just leave it vague. Write down the specific steps you are going to take. Look at your goal every day. Keep it at the forefront of your money thinking. When you consider whether or not you will buy something, look at how it affects your goal.

Is Being Frugal Worth It?

Considering retirement or starting to plan your retirement? When many retire, they experience a decrease in income, but they also experience a decrease in expenses. It takes a while to get a handle on living on a fixed income, that is reduced from what you had when you were working. One way to prepare for this reality is to think about being frugal while you are working. Frugality can become a way of living.  Frugality is simply the practice of looking for the less expensive alternatives. Frugality doesn't have to mean being a Scrooge or living without comfort.  Is it really worth the time and effort you put into things like homemade cleaners and clipping coupons?  Many say it is.

Search the Sunday paper for coupons and clip them out. Make a list of things on sale that you can stock up on in order to get your average cost down. Plan and run a route to four stores in order to get everything where it is the cheapest. Total extra time spent: three hours. Now, save sixty dollars.  This translates into twenty dollars an hour-a pretty good deal.

Sometimes the small stuff is the big stuff, especially when it is repeated over and over. This is why it makes sense to save money on groceries. They are something you buy every week. Saving sixty dollars every week or two adds up over time. How you do it makes a difference though.

For example, suppose you don't want to clip coupons or spend time looking at sales flyers. Why not invest just an hour or two to figure out which store is cheapest for the things you buy? Then shop only there, and buy more of the things you use and like when they are on sale. You might still save $20 per week, with no additional investment of time. That's a $1,000 per year!

You need to sit down and decide how much time you have to spend on your efforts.  If you do this and then figure out what your yearly savings can be, you will have a much clearer idea of how you want to proceed.  It will also give you encouragement on those days when it feels you are missing out on something. A small saving here a small saving there, it all adds up and what is more important over time it can become a habit and a way of living without sacrificing.  

Transactional Analysis Time Management

Transactional analysis time management is the process of combining two strategies into one plan, making it come together to reach a specific target. For example, when we are working, playing, or doing anything that connects to a goal, we need social skills and effectual communication to make it work. If we are lacking in social skills and communication our time management scheme will surely fail.

If you are ready to get started, today we are going to learn some information that can help us flow with ease through life and through everything, our life touches.

I was watching a Youtube segment about how to learn the Newfoundland language, which is English. However, the dialect of Newfoundlanders is unique to that Province and I think the world. Understanding each other is important, and even if we all speak the same language but have different dialects, we may not understand each other. If we do not understand that each of us is different in our own way, we are often on the road to failure.

Dialect consists of grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, language, and so on. The world focuses on proper English, as a rule, to follow that leads us to productivity. The fact is most North American’s do not know proper English because they fail to understand the dialect. The American English first came into focus in the earlier centuries and came directly from England. The English Language spoken in the United States and Canada is mixed up and visibly distinguished from British England, yet not as different as to be a divided language.

This means everyone has their own method of communicating; leading us to believe that proper English is a diverse form of communication and it takes an open mind to communicate effectively as well as having social skills that develop good relationships. We are all different in our own ways, and so are our languages. No one really has the correct way of communicating effectively, yet all of us must conform to some rule. This is where we combine elements of one technique with another to make a complicated skill work.

Now to combine transactional analysis to get time management in order, we must open our minds and think creatively to reach a goal. The transitional action is the process of communicative (open-mind) action connecting more than one person or things that equally have an effect on our influence on how we connect. The analysis then is the employ of purpose word in its place of inflectional forms as a characteristic method of a verbal communication.

Inflectional is changes in your tone or volume in the voice, and the changes of form that words undertake to mark differences that meet gender, race, mood, tension, voice, number of people and so on in the process of communication and socializing. Breaking it down, when you keep an open mind you are combining transactional analysis, contributing to time management since social skills and communication are CRITICAL to reaching goals and managing time.

We can also consider other facets of analysis that can help us produce effectual communication and social skills. After carefully analyzing words for years, I come to the conclusion that understanding is part of the speaker’s problem. If you do not understand someone, it might not be you with the problem. The speaker, if he or she is not using their words properly, can interrupt communication negatively. Therefore, you must learn to listen to speakers, reading between the lines as you hear what they are saying. 

Finally, if we want a well-planned time management scheme, we have to work hard every day to make our dreams come true!