Getting started on your frugal living journey is easier when you make it into a fun challenge. There’s no better way to do this than implementing the Frugal Fridays challenge into your life. As a money-saving expert who has saved thousands of dollars through my frugal living strategies, I’ll share my top tips for being financially smart.
Read on to learn about the Frugal Fridays movement.
What Are Frugal Fridays?
The Frugal Friday challenge is exactly what the title suggests: being frugal on Fridays. One day per week, you and your family will choose to give up all non-essential expenses. This movement is aimed at not only saving money but it’s also meant to help you:
- Focus on what you already have in life – whether it be family members, friends, or physical possessions
- Get creative with low-cost or free ways to cook, have fun, and undertake other activities you normally do requiring you to pull out your wallet
- Creating long-term frugal habits that will help you save hundreds if not thousands of dollars per year
If a Friday doesn’t work for you, you can choose another day of the week that works for you. Just be sure to keep your day of frugality generally on the same day. Why? When you are consistent with habits, you’ll be a lot more likely to stick with them.
Why You Should Do a Frugal Friday Challenge
Even if you aren’t in debt or need to budget because you’re on a low income, I’m sure you have other goals you want to reach – a big reason to save money. Choosing to forgo non-essential takeout dining, shopping and personal care services for just one day a week really adds up in the long run! When you take a step back, you really realize how much you don’t need. All you really need in life is food, clothing, shelter and the occasional treat.
How Frugal Fridays Launched My Journey Towards Financial Freedom
My Story with Frugal Fridays
Let’s dial the clock back to my life in 2017. I had just graduated with a Bachelor’s degree and a community college graduate certificate. Being over $20,000 USD in debt and with the first payment looming, I needed to start paying off my loans. I had just started a new job that I thankfully found in under 2 months of being (purposely) unemployed. The time had come to become smart with my finances, so I started a challenge where I would completely forgo any non-essential spending on Fridays – hence, Frugal Fridays.
Each week, I saved around $20 or $30 and made larger payments on my student loans. Within 3 years of frugal living fuelled by the Frugal Fridays challenge, I was debt-free!
The Ultimate Guide to Getting Started with Frugal Fridays
Steps Before Starting a Frugal Friday Challenge
Now that I’ve covered the reasons why you should do a frugal Friday challenge and my personal success story, let’s get into the practical steps on how to execute this strategy!
Understand Your ‘Why’ and Set a Goal
I’ve gone over the many benefits of participating in Frugal Fridays. However, you should also know the specific reason – or reasons – why you are personally undertaking this challenge. Do you want to save for a specific goal such as a vacation? Paying off debt faster? Going to college again? There are no right or wrong answers. Before you choose a specific goal, it’s a good idea to speak with a financial professional to come up with a saving and investing goal that works for you and your family.
Decide on Details Surrounding the Challenge
The beauty of Frugal Fridays is that there are no rules regarding:
- When you start the challenge
- How often you do the challenge – for example, weekly, monthly or seasonally (around a busy season of high spending such as Christmas)
- What you decide to be frugal with – while Frugal Fridays typically mean cutting out all non-essential expenses, you can also choose to cut out just one or two. This is an especially good option if you’re just getting started. It’s better to set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-finite) goals instead of setting overly ambitious goals. That way, if you don’t reach your initial goal, you won’t be discouraged from continuing!
Get Family and Friends On Board
Many activities in life are best done with someone else! Starting a challenge and sticking with it is hard work – especially if the challenge involves saving money. If you have a partner or family member and are the one to initiate Frugal Fridays, take some time to introduce them to the concept. Get together on a weekday evening. Brew a pot of tea and grab some snacks. Introduce the concept of Frugal Fridays and its many benefits. If you have kids, explain the long-term benefits of saving money such as delayed gratification and extra money to do fun activities later on in the year.
Starting the Frugal Friday Challenge
Decide on Frugal Friday Activity Ideas
Finally – time to get started on with Frugal Friday adventures! Keep spending temptations at bay by keeping a list of free activities you can do. Below are some of my favorite free activities I’ve done with my family:
- Hiking at a nearby park or nature trail
- Board game night
- Movie night
- Picnicking at the local park
- Pulling out old family photo albums, drinking some tea and laughing at old memories
- Going to a museum on free admission days (check your area to see what free activities are available)
Choose Budget-Friendly Recipes
You still need to eat on Frugal Fridays – forgoing food is an example of cheapness! Make easy and fun budget-friendly recipes such as the one listed in this article by GoodFood.
Reward Yourself for a Successful Challenge
After you’ve completed one week or one month of Frugal Fridays, treat yourself for a job well done. You can spend money! Set aside $10 or $20 per person in your family and go out for ice cream or a movie. As long as the expense fits in your budget, there’s no issue with spending a little bit of money to treat yourself for a job well done.
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Tracking Progress and Making Adjustments to Your Frugal Fridays
Track Your Savings
If you have a specific goal when doing the Frugal Fridays challenge, it’s important to track your savings. How much money have you stacked up from avoiding pulling out your wallet for takeout, amusement park tickets, to-go coffee and subscriptions?
Overcome Setbacks and Challenges Hindering Your Progress
No one is perfect (except for me – just kidding!). We are human beings – we all make mistakes. Starting a money-saving challenge and sticking to a goal to save money is hard work. Applaud yourself for simply giving the Frugal Fridays challenge a try! If you get off track – say, make an impulse purchase at the mall or grab a takeout coffee without thinking, give yourself some grace. After you’ve forgiven yourself, make a plan to get back on track with your no-spend day.
Adjust Your Goals to Match Your Progress
If you’re finding that you’re consistently saving well over your intended goal, why not increase your target? Additionally, if you find that cutting out non-essential spending for one day, add one or two more days to the challenge (a frugal weekday challenge, anyone?).
Taking Frugal Fridays to the Next Level
Have you mastered Frugal Fridays and are looking to take your saving and general financial well-being practices to the next level? Below are my other favorite money challenges and how to get started doing them.
Low Spend and No Spend Challenges
Feeling even more ambitious? Why not forgo all non-essential spending for a month – or even for an entire year? If that seems too extreme or unsustainable, cut down your spending on fun stuff by a certain percentage – aka, a low buy month or year. I had the lowest failure rate when I started by cutting down my non-essential spending to half of my original budget. Over time, I decreased my spending by another $50 until I reached 20% of my original figure.
Frugal Grocery Shopping, Meal Prep and Cooking
Grocery and food shopping usually takes a huge bite (sorry) out of anyone’s budget. The good news is that with some forethought and planning, it is possible to cook without spending a huge amount of cash on each meal. Compare prices at different supermarkets, meal plan, shop with a grocery store, meal prep and aim to only go to the grocery store once a week.
A Final Word on the Frugal Friday Challenge
There you have it – my ultimate guide to the Frugal Friday challenge. I hope that this article has been helpful in inspiring you to make some positive changes to your spending habits surrounding non-essential purchases. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, just try the challenge for a few hours. Once you’ve mastered it, try Frugal Fridays for one week, then slowly build towards making it a weekly activity. Keep the big picture in mind (what are you saving for and why?) and be sure to be kind to yourself if you get off track. Saving should be enjoyable – I hope you find that this is the case!
Additional Resources to Help You with Frugal Fridays
- Frugal Meal Planning Handbook by Frugal Fun Finance
- Engaging in Life’s Simple Pleasures by Frugal Fun Finance
- 100 Money Affirmations article by Frugal Fun Finance
- 24 Amazing Cheap DIY Projects by The Spruce Crafts
- 100 Ways to Have Fun for Cheap or Free by ZenHabits
- 125 Free Kids Activities by Newy With Kids
- 22 Free (or Cheap) things to Do by NerdWallet
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Janita is a frugal living expert and owner of Frugal Fun Finance. With over five years of personal experience finding and trying out the best ways to make and save more money, she's eager to share her knowledge. Janita's strategies have helped her save thousands of dollars for funding investments and traveling to over 20 countries.
Janita completed training in personal finance at The University of Western Ontario and McGill University, two prestigious Canadian universities. Her expertise has been shared on GoBankingRates, Yahoo Finance, and NASDAQ.com.
