I live a very frugal life I pretty much always have and I probably always will I do a very strict budget and I track every single penny that I make or spend in excessive spreadsheets no I'm dead serious take a look at this sometimes I wonder if I'm pushing the limits of frugality and just being cheap hey Siri what's the difference between being Frugal and being cheap ass in all seriousness I distinguish between frugality and cheapness based not on how much money I spend on myself but more so on how I treat others but more on this later I think I have good reasons for being Frugal I try to live a simple life but one that's full of meaning and fulfillment and that doesn't necessarily require extensive spending I find immense joy in the simple things things like sleeping in walking my dog cooking meals reading books listening to podcasts making music and making these YouTube videos I love quiet time I love being alone and I love being able to do things at a leisurely Pace without feeling pressured or rushed but living an expensive lifestyle would seriously hinder my ability to live this way because the more I spend the more I have to earn and the more I have to earn the more I have to work and the more I have to work the less time I have to spend doing the things that actually make me happy and it's really that simple the main reason that I live frugally is not because I care about the money itself but because I care about my own freedom and there's another thing and that's compromise life is a balancing act and it's full of compromises every time you say yes to something you're saying no to something else every time I decide that I'm going to spend my money on one thing I'm stopping myself from being able to spend it on something else and the same goes for your time and your efforts I'm pretty fortunate that I'm able to mostly comfortably cover all of my bills but I'm not rich and the truth is that the reason that I'm able to comfortably cover my bills is just because I'm so Frugal in every other way the cost of living here in Toronto is insanely high and only getting worse and so my money doesn't go very far and so I have to compromise and I have to prioritize and I have to decide what I'm willing to say no to so I can continue to say yes to the things that are important having a nice home is something that I value immensely you might walk into my house and look around and think you're not Frugal at all but it's by cutting spending in other ways that I'm able to actually afford to live the way that I live other people might decide to live entirely differently they might opt for cheaper living arrangements in lieu of being able to spend more freely on other things and that's great but that's still a compromise if I earned a little bit more money I might be a bit less Frugal in certain ways but for now this is my life and I'm A-Okay with it and if I'm being honest with you I kind of like being Frugal I kind of find saving money to be fun it's almost like a game to see how much value I can extract from each dollar I see no need for fancy things most of the time there's definitely some exceptions there are some times where you definitely get what you pay for but the vast majority of the time something that's expensive is really only expensive because it's seen as a status symbol and I have no interest in that whatsoever I buy all of my clothing on sale and I try to find a good balance between value and quality but I'm generally not at all interested in the specific brand name unless there's something special about that either in the quality of it in the way that it fits or in the ethics of the manufacturing even still I'm definitely not into wearing any brand names plastered across myself if you were to remove all of the tags and all the logos and all the branding most people couldn't tell the difference between a 10 shirt and a 100 shirt and I personally have no interest in spending 10 times more than I need to just to flex I don't feel like I need to own very much to live a good life and so I don't buy things that I don't need or that don't provide me with long-term Joy I don't tend to attach a sentimental value to material possessions but I do hold a deep level of gratitude and appreciation for the things that I own and the purpose that they serve if you take care of your belongings and you treat them with respect even inexpensive things can last you a very long time even when it comes to experiences or spending time with friends I find that the important part is the actual spending time together not necessarily the activity that you're doing or the place that you're doing it and so for example for the cost of one all you can eat sushi dinner I would much rather go out and buy a whole bunch of groceries and have like five friends over and cook them a really good meal and we can hang out and eat and laugh and play board games and to me that's so much more fun than doing something like an escape room or mini golf or going to a movie and just spending money for the sake of spending money I price match all of my groceries yes I am totally that person that will hold up the grocery store line just to save 50 cents on a cucumber but every 50 cents adds up and by price matching my groceries I'm often able to save somewhere between five and twenty dollars per grocery trip which is pretty significant I also have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about giving more money than necessary to the billionaires that own the grocery store conglomerates here in Canada and so just out of principle alone the less money you can give them the happier I am I go around my house and unplug everything that I don't use on a regular basis I'm not really sure how much of a difference that makes I'm not really sure how much energy is drawn by something that's plugged in but turned off but I figure once again it all adds up so if I don't use it on a reoccurring basis I just keep it unplugged until I need it anytime I'm making an online purchase I will search for a coupon code or discount before I put through the order and whenever possible I wait for a sale so if something's not completely urgent I'll usually just wait until a better deal comes along I'll routinely compare prices between insurance companies for my house insurance and car insurance and also for the internet and phone company just to make sure I'm getting the best deal possible and I have absolutely no problem with pulling my contract at any point and switching to another brand if it's going to save me a few bucks another thing is that I simply just don't eat at restaurants or order takeout unless I'm actually going to hang out with somebody and it's more of a social thing if it's just a meal for myself if it's just about being lazy I just don't do it I just force myself to come home and cook my own meals because it's probably going to be better and honestly it's going to be a lot cheaper and like I said even if I'm seeing friends I often prefer just to host them here than to go out to a restaurant anyways here's a pro tip for you I actually fill my dog's medication prescriptions at a pharmacy and by doing so I save about 30 versus actually just getting the medicine from the vet directly a lot of people don't realize you can do that but there actually are a lot of pharmacies that sell pet medications and actually there's a lot of pet prescriptions that are actually just human medications okay okay so none of these things are all that controversial here let me tell you some of the things that I do that are really Frugal or maybe even cheap pretty much every day I heat up bread for lunch I take it out of my fridge or my freezer I wrap it in aluminum foil and I stick it in the oven for a few minutes and I will save that piece of aluminum foil and I will use it over and over and over again until it rips because I'm just heating up bread and that's not dirty and why would I throw it out I also wait until either the night time or the weekends to run my dishwasher or do my laundry because we have what we call on and off peak time here for electricity and it is cheaper to use electricity after 7 P.M or on the weekends so I just make sure that I run all of my appliances during the off-peak hours here's one that I think is a little bit outside the box if there's an item that I need for a single use or just for a short period of time like a tool of some sort I will go online I will buy that item second hand I'll use it for the time that I need it and then I will resell it for the exact same amount that I paid for it so I'm basically getting a free rental that's one of the bonuses of buying things used is you're already accounting for the depreciation of it not being brand new anymore so yeah if I buy something and I use it for a week or a month or however long I can usually just resell it and get all my money back another way that I save money is by limiting how much heat I'm using during the winter time very rarely do I set my thermostat above 20 degrees Celsius because you know what if I'm cold it cost me nothing to just put on another sweater I don't see the need to rack up a huge gas bill just to make it one or two degrees warmer in the house it blows my mind when I go to somebody else's house over the winter and their thermostat is set to like 25 degrees and they're walking around in shorts and bare feet and I'm like what are you doing are all these things reasonable frugality or am I just cheap I don't know you'll have to tell me but as I mentioned earlier I'm definitely not cheap with other people and I think that that's what's most important if somebody comes over to visit and they're cold I will turn up the thermostat for them I'm not going to just make them sit there and freeze and deal with it if I'm going to visit somebody else I never show up empty-handed I'll bring food or I'll bring drinks or I'll bring something just to show my appreciation for having me over as a guest and like I mentioned earlier I'm very happy to have my friends over and cook elaborate meals for them and I never expect anybody to contribute in any way it's just something I like to do for them so I guess the real question is what do I spend money on what am I okay with spending on a little bit more freely there's a few things well like I said earlier my home is probably on the top of this list I'm a big homebody I spend a lot of time here and I'm also somebody who's very Visual and to me it's very important to have a home that is both comfortable and beautiful and I find a lot of joy in interior design and Decor as well and so I still do shop on sale and look for deals but my home is something that I'm very happy to invest money into because it's something that I find really impacts the quality of my life on a day-to-day basis the one thing that I would say that's even more important to me than my home is Levi he's my son he's my pride and joy he's the yin to my yang and I will stop at no expense to make sure he has the best care possible I make his food from scratch using the highest quality ingredients money can buy he only gets the healthiest treats and unfortunately he has a heart condition which means that a lot of money is spent at the vet and on medications and I'm absolutely anything but stingy when it comes to that I want to make sure he can live as long as possible and be as happy and healthy as possible and so I know that his medications and his vet bills are a huge expense I think they're actually the biggest expense that I have on a yearly basis other than my mortgage itself which sounds insane but it is what it is and I'm certainly not going to deprive him of care just to save a few bucks something else that I'm willing to spend good money on is what I call stress prevention so in particular for me that means having a reliable car and a reliable phone especially because I use both of those things for work having something that's unreliable or that doesn't do what I needed to do is just not an option and of course something I'm always willing to invest in is healthy food like I mentioned I do price match I do shop for sales but eating healthy food is important to me and so I would much rather spend a little bit more on something that's good for me than a little bit less than something that's bad for me I also look at it as junk food causes my skin to break out and fruits and vegetables will always be cheaper than sit cream so it is what it is Frugal Living isn't something I think a lot about on a daily basis to me it's kind of just an instinctive way to live my life it's a habit it's a way that I set myself up to achieve the things I want to achieve and ultimately it's a means to an end if you consider yourself to be a Frugal person I'm very curious to know if you have any tips or tricks you use to save money and if you're somebody who is actively trying to be more frugal I'd like to know what category of spending you tend to struggle with the most if you enjoyed this video please consider liking and subscribing I'm going to leave a link to some other similar videos I've made over here for you so you can check those out as well thank you so much as always for watching and I will see you next week foreign [Music]