Routines are important because usually they are a set of habits that you do routinely, and the key word here is consistency. Because if you do something routinely, good habits are a routine, and you do those routines consistently, you’re usually going to get to the place that you’re hoping for, or at least you’re going to get to a better place if the habits and the routine are good for you.
For instance, let’s say you decide you want to get healthy but you only want to work out one day a month. That’s not consistency. That’s not going to get you to feeling or being more healthy. If you decide that you want to save money one day a month, that’s not going to get you to the path where you feel financially secure.
In this article, I’m going to share with you specifically the routines I follow to save money that I love right now. Routines change depending upon stages in life. Depending upon if you have kids at home or your kids go off to college or you change jobs, you have a different schedule. There are many things that can change certain routines and the consistency of those.
Right now, we’re going to talk about the nine frugal routines that I use that I’m currently loving, that are currently working within my stage of life.
1: Going to Bed Early and Waking Up Early
The first one that I think most people don’t actually think about as far as being frugal or saving money is the routine where I go to bed early and I get up early. I start my day before most people do. I get a lot of comments about how early I go to bed and how early I wake up—that I go to bed too early, that I wake up too early.
Just to give you an idea, I go to bed between 7:30 and 8:00. I get up around 4:30 in the morning, sometimes earlier, depending upon what my plan is. But the point of this is because I use this time to personally work out. I’ll talk about that in another routine. I use this time to get that in.
What that does for me is it sets me up for the day ahead, which sets me up for success. I’m better at work. My mind is clearer. I’m better at doing all kinds of things that will lead me into being more successful with the strategies that I use with money.
Waking up consistently at the same time every single day is actually very scientifically good for your body, especially going to bed around the same time. Now, I’m not saying there might not occasionally be a night where I don’t go to bed till 9:00, but those are rare and few and far between. I’m talking maybe a couple of times a year. I often turn down pretty much anything that people want to do if it’s going to put me out of the house past 7:00. Obviously, important things are different, but most things are not for me. I have a routine. This is what I like to stick to and it works for me.
2: My Meal Planning and Shopping Routine
I’ve done everything in the past from extreme couponing—where you go and you get all these things all at once or you wait six weeks for the next sale—to monthly meal planning to trying to buy for an entire month and going on small trips here in between. But the one that’s currently working for me in my stage of life, and also with the way things have changed at the grocery store with costs going up and with couponing pretty much changing to being all digital, is my weekly routine.
My husband and I were talking the other day about how I used to have a binder back in the extreme couponing days. If you remember that or maybe if you participated, you know what I’m talking about. I had the baseball card holder things in the binder and I would sit down, look at the sales, look at the coupons. This was all before the coupon companies got wise to the extreme couponing phase and they changed it to where it pretty much didn’t help you out anymore.
Getting back to what’s currently working for me—that is my weekly routine. Usually on Friday night or Saturday morning, I will sit down and look at the week ahead. I need to see: are all of us here every single night or what nights are all of us here? Is there a chance that maybe if my husband’s home a day during the week, he could prep dinner so maybe I could do something a little bit better? Is there a time I might be getting home early? Is there a time we’re all getting home late? That’s all going to make a difference on what I plan to cook, and that sets me up for success.
If there’s a night that we’re both not getting home till, I don’t know, 5:30 at night, and we try to make this big meal, that’s not going to work. Most likely, we’re going to end up eating maybe leftovers, which would still be good, but wasting what we had planned and bought for. Or maybe we pick something up, or most families would on the way home. But I don’t do that because I plan this routine for those nights that we are super busy. I’m going to plan something like spaghetti—super quick, super easy, everybody loves that. Or I’m going to plan something like breakfast—again, versatile, super quick, super easy. On the weekends, I’m going to plan something more extravagant, meaning something I can make bigger batches of.
I’m going to sit down. I’m going to see what’s in my pantry. I’m going to see what’s in my fridge. I’m going to see what’s on sale at the grocery store. And I’m going to use my meal planning binder, which is a binder that I have that includes calendars. I will go through weekly, and I’ll have a monthly calendar that I put up on the pegboard and I’ll take it down every single week and I’ll write out meals—just dinners. Breakfast and lunches around here are pretty routine. I know to go ahead and jot those things down on my list that I’m out of. Maybe it’s yogurt, maybe it’s granola, whatever it might be that we need. Put that down on the list.
From there, I’ll use my meal planning binder, which includes a list of family favorite meals. Rather than just sitting there and wasting ten minutes of my time trying to come up with something, I’m going to look at my family favorite meal ideas to make it quick. From there, I’m going to write down what I need to make those meals. I might have to reference back to a recipe that I also keep in that binder. One-stop shop. This whole process really only takes me about ten to fifteen minutes. And then I’ve got a list that I’m taking to the grocery store and I’m getting it done.
3: Using My Google Notes App to Stay Organized
The next one is my habit and my routine of using my Google Notes app on my phone to stay organized with whatever I need. If it’s something that I run out of during the week and I know I need to put it on my list that I just talked about, I will write that in my Google Notes app.
My Google Notes app—I’m not sponsoring Google Notes here, you can use whatever notes apps on your phone—I share a list with my husband. He does the Costco shopping. So if there’s something I see we’re out of, I’ll put that on the Costco list so he has it. Same thing vice versa. I do the regular grocery shopping, so he will put something on my list if he sees that we are out of it.
I keep a notes app for gifts. Gifts that when an idea comes up maybe in February for Christmas, I’m like “that’s a great idea for Christmas.” I’m going to write it down because it’s a whole lot easier to remember those things than try to remember them around the holiday season. And then I’ll also do the same where I will write down gifts that I’ve already purchased. So I have a list currently already operating in August that has the things that I’ve already gotten and picked up for that Christmas time frame.
I have all kinds of lists. I have lists about YouTube video ideas. I have lists about everything. These keep you organized. This is outside of any budgeting or anything like that. This is a list of maybe things that I need for my wardrobe. Maybe I need new white t-shirts, a good reference, or a new belt. I will put that in a list so that when I’m going shopping, I can focus on that one item.
I like to have lists. I’m a list person and staying organized with something easily on my phone. It does help you save money because you remember what you have, you remember what you need to get. It just makes everything easier overall.
4: Making My Own Baked Goods From Scratch
One that I’m having a ton of fun with currently is I have a routine of making my own baked goods from scratch. I started a goal of mine back at the beginning of 2024 to start making more things from scratch, and I did it and I love it. Well, this year I’ve kind of tried to focus on baked goods.
Now, some of these things are more complicated, so I am working on them and they’re going to take time to perfect, but so far my family thinks they’re pretty good. But this is a routine that saves you money if you want to have great things that you can take to maybe holiday parties around Christmas time or make your own birthday cake rather than going out and buying one.
Some of the things, if you’re interested, that I’ve tried: I’ve been making macarons—you know the little cookies, the little cookies on top of each other with a little cream inside. They’re made with almond flour and egg whites. I’m trying those. It’s taking some work. I also made eclairs with pastry cream. I made my own pastry cream for the first time.
Side note: my daughter and I and even my husband—we like to watch baking shows. Mostly my daughter and I. My husband just kind of is there when we’re watching the baking shows. We love that kind of thing. We love seeing all the creativity. And I thought, “Oh, let me make some pastry cream.” The pastry cream was super easy. I was very nervous about it, but the eclairs—that was a little bit more difficult because you’ve got to let them puff up and be hollow. They didn’t turn out hollow the first couple of times. I’m still working on it.
But this is one of my new favorite routines because it’s also just a way to hang out at home so you’re not spending money and you’re trying to make something from scratch.
5: Choosing Quality Over Quantity
The next routine that really we’ve made sure that we are going towards has been happening since we were able to pay off our mortgage early. If you’ve been following this channel long, you know that. Well, we are choosing quality over quantity more than anything or even over something cheap.
We know that long-term, a quality classic item that doesn’t go out of style is a better buy overall. Certain stages in your life, that might not be what you need. If you’re at a stage where you’re paying off debt, you’re living paycheck to paycheck and you’re trying to get ahead and you’re working those small steps to get there, going and buying the cheapest pair of shoes you can find might be what you need to do at that time. I remember I’ve been at that stage in my life.
That’s not the stage that we are at now. We now know we have the ability to look at something—and higher price doesn’t always mean quality—but it might be a higher price than the normal thing we would have chosen. We look more at long-term because the price per use is a thing. You can get something that you’re going to keep for ten, fifteen years. That’s going to be maybe a piece of furniture, maybe clothes. I have clothes that I’ve had that long and they still look great. I spent a little bit more on them and I’ve noticed, yeah, the pieces that I spent more money on years ago, which probably I didn’t want to or probably shouldn’t have, are actually still lasting.
Choosing quality over quantity or a cheaper version of something is a routine that we have definitely gone into more and more.
6: My At-Home Workout Routine
Another one that I’ve been doing for years now, and I’ve actually changed up every so often what I do, and I’ve talked about it on this channel, I’ve recommended different people to look into, is my at-home workout routine. I don’t go to a gym. It might be beneficial to have more equipment sometimes, but I’m at a stage in my life where I get up early enough. There’s not a gym close to me. I can’t always leave because again, I do have a child in elementary school and there is just limited time with the fact that I work full-time. I also have a child and my husband’s here so I have family time and my job is pretty darn demanding. And then I also have this YouTube channel. Making time for the gym didn’t really work out.
For me, my workout routine is something that’s very important. Why? Because as you age, if you are more unhealthy, it costs you more. A couple of years ago, I realized I wasn’t paying very good attention to my health and it started to show—meaning I had certain things like kidney stones and there were other doctor’s appointments and things were coming up and then those bills were coming in and I’m going “hold on a minute, we need to get this under control” because this can spiral really quickly, especially as you age if you are unhealthy.
For me, focusing on making sure I’m moving my body and doing things appropriately for my health is key. One of the things that I do is walk. Getting my steps in is humongous, especially in today’s sedentary lifestyle with people working at desks a lot and not moving. We’re not moving like we used to.
The other thing that I do is strength train because you can look into it more, but muscle is very, very helpful when you do age as far as helping with your mobility. For me, I want to, if I’m going to live to a ripe older age, be able to move around, be able to take care of myself. I think somebody said be able to put myself on and off the toilet for as long as possible. If I can do something today to help with that, to help with those expensive medical bills—I mean, you could probably raise your hand and say, “Yep, medical bills are expensive”—I’m going to do that. And for me, that is working out.
Currently, the routine that works for me is doing that at home. I strength train on my back porch. I have a weight bench. I have one of those little foam pad things that goes underneath it. I have dumbbells that I use. And then I also combine that with routine walking.
7: Monthly Subscription Monitoring
Another routine that I do monthly is I monitor my subscription use. Subscriptions are a huge part of our society now and the way things are going. You have subscriptions to things. You don’t necessarily go out and buy software. You have a monthly subscription to it. You don’t have a satellite dish on your house. You have a monthly streaming service that you use. And these things can add up.
As we talked about at the beginning of this article, things change in your life. For instance, let’s talk about a subscription that I had. I had a subscription to a fitness app for somebody specifically who had a fitness app and I used it to work out. Well, I moved away from that. I found an actual fitness program that I bought the program and so I can use it and do it on my own because I am at the point now where I don’t need help seeing how to do specific exercises. I know how my body should be, my back straight, etc., to help reduce cause of injury—which if you don’t, you need to make sure you are looking into that because if you’re not working out or lifting weights correctly, you can really injure yourself. You need to look at maybe having someone certified help you with that.
Anyway, getting back, I was paying for a subscription service. Well, as soon as I decided to move away to a different program, I cancelled that subscription service. I’m not even going to waste one month of something that I’m not using. And a lot of people can lose track of this.
One of the biggest ways you can really get sidetracked on subscription services are those that make you pay annually. And yes, sure, Amazon you pay annually too, but there may be some other apps that make you pay annually. Or they say if you pay twelve months—they might say you could pay monthly for ten dollars a month or you can get twelve months for ninety dollars. Well obviously the better deal is to do twelve months for ninety dollars. But what you don’t realize is that six months into it you’re no longer even using the thing and then six months after that it auto-renews.
One thing that I also do if I ever run across a subscription that I want to use and it has one of those programs where you get a discount for doing it annually and I believe in my heart that I’m going to use it for that year, then I will automatically go in and cancel. Now, you still get the entire year, but you don’t have to worry that you forgot to go back in and cancel that thing. Next thing you know, you’re checking your credit card statement for that thing you bought a year ago and it’s auto-renewing and the price has gone up. Oh no.
That’s a quick way that I make sure I stay on top of those subscriptions. I make it a routine.
8: Batch Cooking on Weekends
Another one that I do is batch cook on the weekends for leftovers during the week. I talked earlier about my shopping routine and how I look at the week ahead for what I’m making and see what works for maybe the schedule that I have that week. And always, here’s the thing, it’s never going to be perfect.
Last week, I had something planned on Friday for dinner that I was going to make that wasn’t going to take a ton of time, but let me tell you, the situation that happened on Friday has really rocked my world. Not going to talk about it, but the fact is it ruined the day. You know what? I ended up mixing up some pancake batter and making scrambled eggs because my mind was just blown and it just went out the window. But what are we having tonight? We’re having those nachos. That’s what I had planned to make. We are making nachos tonight—hamburger meat on top of tortilla chips with some vegetables and all kinds of things. That’s what we’re going to do tonight. We’re not going to waste it. We’re going to reuse it. But those things, it’s never going to be perfect.
Getting back to my routine of batch cooking: on the weekend is when I have my most time. Usually Sunday afternoon, evening. Now, I usually design what I’m making on the weekend for leftovers because I have extra time. Those are the things that I can make more of and I will go ahead and make two to three more servings and those things serve as lunches for myself and my husband throughout the week.
I will try to make sure there are about two dinners during the week that I’ve got time enough to make extras of, then I will make sure I have two to three extra meals out of each of those. That gives us four to six leftovers to work with during the week.
9: Daily Budget Checking
Another thing that I do is I constantly, routinely, daily check my budget. I use the Every Dollar Budgeting app. Yes, it’s free. There is a paying version. I don’t need that. Nobody does really, if you ask me. It’s really simple. They’ve got everything you need for the non-paying version. You can use any app that might work for you as well. There are plenty of budgeting apps and they’re super simple because it’s usually fill-in-the-blank. How much money do you have coming in? You can fill in the categories, change the categories. You can delete some categories, add some categories. You can simplify the categories.
Using the app because it’s always with you on your phone, you can put your budget in and then you can track your expenses. I have even taught my daughter how to put in the expenses. We might go grocery shopping and she’ll put in how much we spent under the grocery tab and that’s a great way for them to physically see that transaction that happens. They don’t see cash exchange. They see maybe use a card, but they see food. Now, this costs money and this goes into a budget and that’s what we follow. It’s a great seed to plant.
Checking that budget routinely is important because I know where I am. It’s also a great way to know if a bill didn’t get to you. There’s happened one time where I didn’t get the electricity bill and I’m like, “Uh, we’re at the end of the month here and I haven’t paid this. Where is this?” Helps you reduce those late fees. Keeps you on track. You remember every single day what goal you’re moving towards. You can see if you’re getting a little too spendy in one spot. You can say, “Oh, going to have to back up a little bit or I might not make it to the end of the month.” But you have to routinely stay on top of that.
The Power of Consistent Frugal Routines
These nine frugal routines work together to create a framework for financial success. The key is consistency—doing these things regularly, not just when you feel like it or when you remember. When you establish routines around money management, meal planning, health, and organization, you remove the decision fatigue that often leads to poor financial choices.
Remember, routines change as your life changes. What works for me in my current stage of life might need to be adjusted for yours. The important thing is to find systems that you can stick with consistently and that move you toward your financial goals.
Whether it’s waking up early to set yourself up for success, planning your meals to avoid expensive last-minute decisions, or checking your budget daily to stay on track, these small consistent actions compound over time into significant financial improvements. Start with one or two routines that resonate with you, get consistent with those, and then gradually add more as they become natural parts of your daily life.