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I am a very frugal person. I coupon, but on sale, use in store rewards programs, shop at thrift shops (you would never know though, it's all brand name stuff), we don't go out to eat often. I meal plan so we aren't forced to order out. I don't impulse buy and rarely convenience buy. We still live normally we just don't over do it. We still have fun!

I do not live a frugal life but I need to start in 2013! We have tons of home renovation projects, mostly unpaid maternity leave and double daycare expenses ahead.

Do you impulse buy? Do you see something and buy it, even if 24 hours before it was not on your radar screen and you did not know you needed it? If so, make a rule that you can't purchase anything that isn't on your shopping list without waiting 48 hours to buy it.

@Thehistoryofus: @Bluebonnet: Both very good points!

I try to be fairly frugal and tend to be conscientious of my spending but I have trouble mostly when spending for the LO - I know I shouldn't buy so many loathes and toys that he will outgrow so fast bt it's hard to resist... Goal for 2013 I guess

I spend a fair bit on food because it's so important to our health (and is also yummy) but I don't spend as much on our house or clothes.

Trying to live a minimal and decluttered life helps me out because I know that too much stuff just stresses me out in the end. I try to hold to the adage of not buying something unless it is truly useful or beautiful, and hopefully both.

@mrsbee that is great! I would try out zero budgeting. Do you do a monthly budget? If you do and can stick to it, it is easy to be more frugal. No more wants..only necessities.

We're pretty frugal. I love buying cute things for the girls, but I limit myself to a certain small dollar amount per month. Sometimes we even skip buying things for them for a month so that we can buy something special the next month.

We don't really eat out... I mean maybe twice a month.

I splurge on really nice haircuts, and then I really only need to get them every 3-6 months. I use few beauty products and go to the spa rarely (but do treat myself a couple of times a year).

Christmas is 2 gifts and a few stocking stuffers.

We buy our favorite wines when they are on sale and by the case, so that we can enjoy it over time at a great price.

We have our house thermostat set at 60 degrees overnight in the winter and 62 or so during the day. Maybe it seems extreme, but we're quite comfortable in sweaters and slippers. In the summer we set the thermostat to 78 degrees, use fans, and get out of the house when it's really hot.

Being this frugal has put us in a really nice position going into the future. We save more than 22% of our income each year... so it really works!

*I don't subscribe to deal of the day sites-- most of it is stuff I don't need and wouldn't spend money on if there wasn't a shiny new email telling me what a good deal it is.
*We put big purchases on credit cards to get points --> cash or gift cards for stuff we want (we always pay off credit cards!).
*We try to cook at home quite a bit and bring our lunches to work and we never turn down free food, even if it's not very delicious (i.e. meals provided at work/eating with parents/lunches served at church/etc). Leftovers are your friend!
*DH and I both have really basic wardrobes with quality pieces that can be mixed and matched. I rarely buy new clothes but I have a million scarves and accessories from my extravagant single days that I can switch up to make new outfits.
*We don't have a gym membership but we go for long walks around our neighborhood & at the nearby state park. Sometimes we go rollerblading at parks...only free fitness activities for us.
*Just about all nursery decor is DIY, repurposed other crap I already had & I've been super selective about baby gear needs vs. wants.
*DH and I don't get each other birthday or Christmas gifts. Also he doesn't get me flowers, at my request--he used to bring them pretty often but it was such a waste of money and I'd rather the $$ go to other things! Flowers only on VERY special occasions.
*We have one fairly new (2009), paid-off car that we use 95% of the time and one old (1994) car that we use for backup...we carpool to work and for the most part just use the newer car b/c it gets twice the gas mileage and is nicer. The old one costs almost nothing to maintain and we only carry collision insurance on it (I don't think you guys need cars where you live though)

@Bao: we also thrift a lot! It's my DH's and mine's idea for a date to go thrifting.

@MrsBee We just started using you need a budget, I haven't used it long enough to see a different but the reviews are fantastic!

I can't bring myself to pay full price for clothing, that comes from working in retail for a few years! I 'm more frugal than my husband in some ways. YNAB is going to require both of us to account for each dollar spent.

Kinda. A few years ago when we first bought our house, we were extraordinarily frugal. I'm still frugal now, but LO is my excuse to spend a little on things like crafts and projects. Having said that, I don't impulse buy when we're out in town. All her toys, regardless of how cheap they were, were considered for length of usefulness, same with clothes.

I think it's good to be able to spend a little on things you enjoy, but there should be a limit to it. It could be as simple as making a mental note of things you want and choosing one instead of another, or a few little things as opposed to one big thing or vice versa. The act of delaying a purchase will automatically trigger this 'balance' and in effect will eventually get you to be more choosy before buying something. You'll train yourself to eventually be even more choosy about the things you end up buying and you'd be surprised by how much you save.

This is how I changed. But living in small town where no one flaunts name brand anything helps. It's also a little cultural here -- "lagom". It's a term without a English equivalent, it roughly means "in the middle" or "just right". But their "lagom" really means closer to what many cultures mean by "ample". It's their ideal.

I'm not frugal at all (anymore), part as a reflex of being so poor when I was putting myself through college--haha.

But seriously, I spend *so* much money at the Grocery store and at Target, and we're only two people. On WB once, I read a thread where people were talking about their monthly grocery budget, and many people were saying theirs was $200 or $400 or a high humber was $600 for a family of four. So I looked up OUR grocery bills for a month (my online banking page seperated everything I buy into categories for me) and ours was....$1000 for one month!

That did not count eating out, btw. um...oops? And that wasn't a one-off. The month before we were $930 and the month after $1040. So we just suck.

Now granted...at Target, we might be buying shampoo, wrinkle cream, the odd shirt, an electronic here or there. But definitely not every month!

So we just suck in that department. I'd say my husband is more frugal that I am. He always checks online for coupons before making I purchase (I forget to do that a lot), and he's much happier using older, worn stuff for a long time, wheras I always want to buy a new one of whatever.

I don't consider myself overly frugal, but DH and I are very good at living within our means, putting money into our savings and aggressively paying off our mortgage....so I guess we have some part of the equation figured out?? I certainly don't feel especially frugal, particularly the week before Christmas!

Anyhow, probably the single biggest money-saver for me, and I know some PPs have mentioned it as well, is meal-planning. On Saturday or Sunday of every week I plan all our meals for the week: breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. I do one big grocery shop for everything (and if there's one thing we don't skimp on it's food quality) and I only purchase what's on my list. I used to go to the store multiple times a week, and the little impulse purchases here and there definitely added up.

I also eat all three meals/day at home, which definitely helps keeps costs down. We usually get take-out on Friday nights, but otherwise eat out very rarely. We're both foodies and prefer to cook for ourselves

I used to live way below my means. We still do, but the margin isn't nearly as great because of one thing: Time. We don't have as much of it to devote to money-saving tasks as we used to. I'm willing to pay more for some conveniences than I used to be, because my time is worth more (both economically because I'm more skilled and personally because I've got a LO) now.

I'm not at all opposed to the idea of frugality, but I think it's easy to look at someone else's situation and feel bad about one's own choices, when the two situations are not really comparable.

We are not especially frugal, but we also live well within our means. One tip I try to live by regarding finances is that “you can’t have it all”. You can splurge in some categories, but not all of them – so you have to pick where you are going to splurge and where you are not and stick to that plan.

We splurge on food and drinks. We still try to be reasonably frugal there, so we spent several months trying new wines under $8 to find the ones we liked best. We then only buy wine by the case because there is one liquor store that gives a 10% discount if you buy by the case.

Clothing is a category I did not splurge on. I love to shop at thrift and consignment shops; which should be easy to do in NYC!

Call your cell phone provider and see if they are any new plans which are comparable to you current plan but cheaper. Verizon just switched us to a new plan which is actually better than the old one we had and $30 cheaper a month.

If you can cable shop, do so – we just switched providers because we moved and the new provider is almost $40 cheaper a month for the exact same cable/internet package.

We are frugal by necessity. I coupon, and weekly menu plan to cut down on groceries. We consignment shop and Craigslist most baby items and really never buy extra clothes or fun stuff for ourselves, unless necessary(ie new jeans when old ones are worn out). We budget our dining out, sometimes we can stretch it so that we can have 1 cheap meal per week, other months we save it for 1 nice meal. Or, we let my parents take us to dinner haha they offer, so why turn it down! I'm trying to be more conservative with utilities since I'm home more now, ie water usage and electricity usage, these are something I've never thought a lot about but try hard to now, just making sure to turn off lights I'm not using and unplug appliances not in use etc. As for cable/Internet that is our big splurge since we don't spend money to go out much. Still I try to keep an eye out for package deal promotions, and since we do not have a contract with cable, the plan can be switched at anytime to a better promotional package. I call almost monthly to check for deals!

Four years in college, two years in a volunteer corps, two years in grad school (while supporting my husband on a TA-ship), and now a baby on the way has made us very frugal!

It depends on how you tend to conceptualize thing. If you are a detail person and do well with rules, then things like budgeting or cutting out certain areas will help a lot. There are tons of blogs on this.

If you are a big picture person (which is how I tend to be), then it would be more about changing a philosophy. For me it's two things:

1) Separate wants from needs.

It's totally OK to purchase wants. But every time you buy something, ask if it's a want or a need. You'll start to realize how often you indulge.

2) Really, really enjoy indulgences. It's the same with dieting - don't mindlessly snack. Don't buy the skirt that's only kinda cute or buy a latte from the coffee shop you only kind of like. Learn to savor. Research what wine you want ahead of time or ask the wine guy (isn't there a word for that vin- something?) to recommend a three buck chuck. Or my favorite - pick the prettiest label under $10! Basically make the fun part about something other than it being a good bottle.

3) Spend less time in shops. I'm sure this is much harder in NYC than in Montana (where I live!) but don't go shopping recreationally. Don't window shop. Don't use shopping for entertainment - only go when you need something or intentionally mean to purchase something.

4) When all else fails - When I was unemployed this summer and my husband was studying for the bar, our motto was basically, "Don't buy anything ever." Frugality at it's simplest, lol!