Its not too hard to find stories in the media about seemingly ordinary people finding great financial success.
How did they do it?
This post originally appeared onThe Simple Dollar.
Unfortunately, many of those stories have additional details that you dont read about in the headlines.
Often, youll find that those people practiced a level of frugality that seems like complete misery to you.
At that point, the walls come crashing down.
We dont make a ton of money.
At the same time, were not extremely frugal.
We eat normal meals, have normal hobbies, and have normal lives.
We paid off our student loans, which was in the five figures for each of us.
We also paid off a ton of credit card debt,alsomeasuring in the five figures.
We bought a four bedroom home and then paid off the entire thing in about four years.
Right now, we have no debtsnot even a mortgageand are saving for actually retiringearly.
How is that even possible?
Its possible thanks to using a handful of very smart strategies along the way.
The rest of this article is a basic blueprint for what we did.
Think about it yourself.
When I suggest cutting back on your spending, what do you think about?
Thats a completely backwards approach to frugality.Thats an approach thats virtually guaranteed to be miserable and guaranteed to fail.
It comes from things like buying store brand hand soap and store brand laundry soap.
It comes from things like making a grocery list before you go to the grocery store.
It comes from negotiating for a better insurance package.
It comes from moving closer to work so you dont have to drive each day.
It doesnt come from eliminating a stop at a coffee shop if you truly love that perfect morning coffee.
It doesnt come from completely abandoning your favorite hobby.
It doesnt come from sitting at home by yourself while your friends have fun.
Use this approach when you look through big lists of money saving tips.
Dont do the ones that sound like theyd make your life substantially less enjoyable.
Thats the kind that will last.
Theres this perception that eating out is simply way more convenient than preparing food and eating at home.
Even cooking a simple meal can seem intimidating.
How do you beat that perception?
As that transition occurs, the intimidation factor of cooking at home will become lower and lower.
It wont seem overwhelming to come home and make even a fairly complicated meal.
Dont Waste Food
Im often stunned at how much food many households simply waste.
All of that is wasteful.
Heres a new approach.
That way, you really dont have to buy all that much at the grocery store.
Are there fresh veggies in the crisper?
Those steps alone take care of a lot of the food waste that a family undergoes.
Remember, whenever you toss food in the trash, youre literally throwing away money.
That food costsomethingto get it into your home and now youre just tossing it.
venture to avoid doing that.
Scale Back Treats Until They Become Treats Again
Humans are routine-oriented creatures.
We often fall into daily routines and weekly routines that we just repeat over and over again.
Usually, we do them without thinking or feelingtheyre just the norm.
Are you really gettingrealvalue from that expense?
Think of a morning cup of coffee from Starbucks instead of from the coffee pot at work.
Think of a regular stop at a store that caters to your hobby.
When you repeat such a thing often enough, it ceases to be a treat.
It ceases to be a treat and just becomes normal.
Instead, get your morning coffee from the shared pot at work.
Youll spend a lot less money and the treats will actually bring you more joy and pleasure than before.
That way, when you do go to the store, you have a list to follow.
That way, when you go there, youre not just wandering around.
This doesnt mean that you cant ever be spontaneous with your money.
This is a reflexive trap that many people fall into as their lives become busy.
Give yourself time to read if reading is your passion.
Give yourself time to play board games if tabletop gaming is your passion.
Youll find that when you do this, your desire to accumulate stuff actually melts away.
You just question every single purchase.
That doesnt mean that you cease spending money.
A financially responsible mindset takes those situations and constantly runs them through their head.
Do they make sense?
Is there a better way to do it?
Can I just borrow that item?
Can I buy the store brand instead?
What you find is that you start to whittle away a lot of your expenses.
You start to see unnecessary expenses as being unnecessary.
Thats the purpose of such reflection.
It cuts your spending down to the stuff that really matters.
Its something that life forces them to do and they hate every minute of it.
Instead, see your job as an opportunity.
Dont live to work, work tolive.
Not only that, its an opportunity to open up even more freedom.
you’re able to do that by simply taking on the difficult tasks.
Look for situations to challenge yourself at work.
Look for opportunities to get free education.
Look for things that can bolster your resume and produce a great work review.
If those things arent appreciated in your workplace in terms of better pay, so what?
These things represent a behavioral shift, a different way of approaching day-to-day life.
The thing is, it requires apermanent shiftto these kinds of behaviors for make them work.
These arent things that you try on when you think of them.
Without that change in your sense of normal behavior, these changes wont stick.
Theres no way around it.
For some people, adopting a lot of changes at once is the best approach.
For those people, making all of these changes in one swoop is what they need to do.
More than anything, they simply require introspection.
The path to financial success doesnt begin with a bunch of misery.
It begins with asking questions about why youre spending each dollar that youre spending.
It begins with figuring out which things really matter to you and which things dont matter as much.
It begins with trying and discovering new things.
Those things come together over time to raise you up from living paycheck to paycheck.
Its a path that begins not with radical change, but with asking lots of questions.
