Your Best Budget Part 3: 8 frugal swaps that will save you money

Welcome to the Fearless Girl Finance ‘Your Best Budget’ series! This is a 4-part series with new content released each week on practical ways to stay on budget, plus lots of challenges and ideas that will help to make your budget feel like fun. Last week you defined your long-term goals and learned some practical ways to stay on budget. This week we are looking at 8 frugal swaps that you won’t even notice saving you money!  

What is frugality? 

Frugality can have negative, penny-pinching connotations, conjuring up images of never buying new clothes, staying in to eat beans and jacket potatoes every night and sitting in the dark rather than spend money on electricity.  

True frugality is about knowing the value of your money. It is about mindful spending and prioritising what’s really important to you so that you can increase your savings, reduce your debt and work towards financial freedom faster. When you are frugal, you will never cut out what really matters to you.  

Are you frugal or are you cheap? 

Cheapness is where that penny-pinching negativity comes from. A cheapskate focuses on spending as little money as possible, often at the expense of long-term satisfaction. Living frugally does mean making some swaps or seeking out the best deals, but it is not about constant sacrifice. It is about using the resources you have to their best effect. 

Imagine you order 10 items from a fast fashion giant (we all know the ones I’m thinking of!) Those 10 items may cost less than $100, but the clothes won’t be well made with good quality fabric. The shoes will wear out quickly and might even start to smell. With weekly new drops, these fast fashion retail giants are extremely trend focused, so in 6 months to a year, you may not wear 80% of what you bought.  

Now imagine you buy the jeans of your dreams. They cost over $100 but the denim is soft and comfortable, and the design gives you an ass a Kardashian would envy. They might not be the most on trend shape, but they flatter you and you feel amazing every time you put them on. You don’t need to buy 4 different pairs of jeans, because you always fall back on these ones.  

That is the difference between being cheap and being frugal.  

8 frugal swaps to save you money 

Meal planning 

I am a demon for Deliveroo. A few clicks and my favourite tortilla bowl with grilled chicken and fresh guac is speeding its way towards me. But at $10 a bowl, this is not a financially sustainable way to eat.  

Planning out your meals for the week is one of the best frugal swaps to save you money. Even better, batch cooking means you will have a home-cooked meal waiting for you when you get in after a long day. If you aren’t into batch cooking or starting from scratch every day, a meal delivery service like will still be cheaper than Deliveroo and will cut down on food waste as each meal is perfectly portioned out. 

Try out Meat-Free Mondays 

Or Tuesdays, Wednesdays…even a whole weekend if you’re interested. Vegetarian sources of protein like lentils, chickpeas and yoghurt are a fraction of the price of ethically sourced meat. Try batch cooking a dahl curry using lentils, making hummus for a snack or using Greek yoghurt in your breakfast with granola and honey. Incorporating just one meat free day per week is a great way to try out different recipes and save both your pennies and the planet.  

Buy second hand 

Flea markets and Facebook might both be considered outdated, but I furnished half of my apartment from Facebook marketplace. For readers in the UAE, you can find literally ANYTHING on Dubizzle, and local-area Facebook groups are amazing for swaps and cheaper items.  

A Fearless Girl caveat – be careful of scammers. Never click on a link that a potential buyer or seller sends you, keep it to cash or reputable apps where you can and if you are meeting a seller, meet in a public place and tell a trusted friend where you are going (take it from someone who clicked on a fraudulent link and lost over $700).  

Shop your wardrobe 

Shopping your wardrobe reduces the cost-per-wear of items you already own. If you wear a $40 blazer 10 times, the cost-per-wear is $4. It also allows you to get creative with clothes you already own, and re-style things you may have consigned to the charity pile. For the Fearless Girl method of shopping your wardrobe, click here to read about our 10 Outfits x 10 Items challenge.  

One Item a Month challenge 

In a similar vein (although not one we can take credit for, we have to thank the incredibly stylish slow fashion influencer Tess Montgomery for this one), the One Item a Month challenge is the frugal spender’s dream. For this challenge, you add up how much you usually spend on fast fashion or similar (new but unnecessary tech etc) and the following month, you use that same amount to buy one single high-quality item.  

The idea is that by buying a single item that you love and probably lusted after, you will get a lot more wear out of it and it will work with what you already have in your wardrobe – which will reduce further spending. Think one reversible designer leather belt, instead of 4 cheap belts in various colours, none of which work perfectly with every outfit in your wardrobe. That’s how you shop frugally, not cheaply.  

Bring the salon to your home 

An ‘everything’ shower can be as good as a salon experience, provided you’re using the right products and building your ambiance. At-home nails and brows have come a long way (click here for our top recommendation on getting salon-perfect nails at home!) so light your candles, cue up the relaxing playlist and lather on the moisturiser. Treat yourself to a face mask, hair mask and body scrub to make it feel really luxurious.  

Sign up to a library programme 

As a voracious reader, I know how expensive it can be as a hobby. Sign up for a library card and you won’t just be able to access your local library, but you may be able to access audiobooks and e-books from libraries across 78 different countries. Simply upload your library card to the Libby online library programme, and (literally) a whole world of new reads will open up to you. 

Try home-made cleaning products 

Did you know there’s one store cupboard ingredient that can be used for counter tops, bathrooms and mirrors, and that you can buy a litre of it for a quarter of the price of a Dettol spray? White vinegar is a natural disinfectant, and when mixed with warm water and a few drops of your favourite essential oil, it will leave your home sparkling and smelling sensational (the vinegar smell evaporates as it dries).  

Baking soda is a natural and cost-effective way to disinfect and neutralise odours on anything from your mattress to your rug (I can vouch that it even works for pet odours). Sprinkle it on, leave it for 30 minutes and vacuum it off. Cost-effective, easy-to-use and fewer chemicals? Add white vinegar and baking soda to your next grocery haul ASAP.  

Will you try any of these 8 frugal swaps to save you money? Let us know in the comments or tag us on Instagram @fearlessgirlfinance_ 

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll love Part 1: Why you aren’t staying on budget and Part 2: Practical ways to stay on budget.

Click here for Part 4 – how a no-spend challenge could be the key to financial freedom