Today we are going to explore nineteen frugal luxuries that make you feel rich without spending much so that you can actually have luxuries on a budget. Some of these cost nothing at all, while others involve spending just a little bit in an extremely smart way, understanding that they actually cause a big effect. The whole point is to really sit back and look at what constitutes a rich life from a different perspective, moving away from all the glitz and the glamour that you see on social media.
When I think about being rich, I think about it as being enjoyable, as contentment, as peaceful, as just that wonderful spa-like feeling. I’m excited to share these nineteen things that can be small frugal luxuries that you might want to add to your life.
1. A Nice Pillow
How many of you have gotten a nice new pillow before and it just completely rocked your world? Think about it: your head is heavy, your neck does a lot of work, and you’re laying on this thing seven to eight hours a night. If you don’t have a great pillow, you will feel it all day the next day. However, if you have a great pillow, it will make a huge difference in the way you feel the next day.
I love Consumer Reports, and the pillow I’ve been using was the top-rated pillow on Consumer Reports. It’s called the Coop pillow, and you can often get it on sale on Amazon. Spending a little bit more money on something that is so impactful and can actually make you feel wonderful the next day is absolutely a frugal luxury.
2. An Electric Blanket or Heating Pad
Here’s another nighttime relaxing luxury: having an electric blanket or even just a heating pad. Think about it – you’re getting into your bed on a cold night, you’re being frugal about having the temperature lower in your house so you’re not overusing the heat, but you use an electric blanket just to get the bed warm for you to crawl in and get comfortable. Maybe you set it on a timer so it goes off after a while.
I don’t have an electric blanket, but I use a heating pad. I’ll lay in the bed, maybe read a book right before I go to sleep, and it’s a way to warm up the entire bed while I’m starting to relax and get into that luxurious feeling of winding down after a long day. Getting all nice and cozy warm with an electric blanket or a heating pad for your bed just for a bit at night when you’re starting to relax and read your book might be a nice frugal luxury for you.
3. Sitting Peacefully Without Distractions
This third luxury doesn’t cost anything at all, and it’s one that’s so overlooked in the day of having your phone always with you and always scrolling and always having the news in your face. It’s simply sitting peacefully – maybe it’s on your back porch or in your quiet room where you have your books, drinking your favorite beverage.
Maybe it’s tea, maybe it’s coffee, maybe it’s a little glass of wine at the end of a day, but you’re just relaxing, you’re quiet, you’re thinking things through. Maybe it’s planning the day ahead – what’s your day going to look like, starting it out peacefully? Or at the end of the day, really reflecting back on what went well today and what you can do for tomorrow. Giving yourself that peace and quiet while enjoying that delicious beverage is going to feel very luxurious.
4. Higher Quality Food
This is one of the things I started doing this year, and it was spending more money on higher quality food. This is something that has made a big difference in my health. Believe it or not, I have seen a huge difference.
For example, I’ve switched to free-range eggs – not just cage-free, but free-range eggs. If you’ve ever seen a free-range egg, yes, you’re going to spend a little bit more money, but crack a free-range egg next to a regular egg from the grocery store. The difference in the color of the yellow of that yolk is shocking, and the difference in the nutrients that you get from that egg are shocking when you look into it.
I also purchase nice flour since I make homemade sourdough bread now. I use a really good flour that I get at a discount because they do have it at Costco, but it’s a good flour that makes really delicious bread. Having nicer meals at home with higher quality items is still considerably less than eating out, and you’re enjoying it more because there’s just a better, richer flavor and your body knows that there are possibly more nutrients in it.
5. A Bidet
This might seem a little bit weird, but if you know, you know. It’s called a bidet – the water cleansing system for personal hygiene. You don’t even have to have a separate bidet installed next to your toilet like you might see in some bathrooms. You can get the ones now that attach to your existing toilet, or you can even get those postpartum bottles and just use that – keep water in it and keep it on the back of the toilet.
Let me tell you, you get squeaky clean, you use less toilet paper which makes it less expensive, so it is frugal, and you just feel nice and clean throughout the day. I highly recommend it.
6. Quality Coffee at Home
I don’t drink coffee, but I know many of you do and you consider coffee luxurious. Well, spend a little bit more money, but instead of going out to get it, go and buy some local gourmet coffee beans. Heck, go order them online if you don’t have anything nearby. Get your own coffee grinder, do a little French press action, get a little piece of equipment that actually makes delicious coffee at home.
You can utilize that for the other frugal luxury of sitting and relaxing with a quiet mind, combining two luxuries into one perfect moment.
7. Amazon Prime
Yes, I have it, and I pay for it. To me, it just feels luxurious to get what I need super quickly at my door without having to spend half a day in my car, wasting gas and time looking for the thing that I need. How many times have you looked for something and you spend a ton of time at a store with a bunch of people who are grumpy, pushing carts everywhere, having to park ten million miles away because it’s the holiday season, and you can’t find what you need?
All you need is this one thing that you actually need, and you just can’t find it. It’s a little bit of a luxury to me to have Amazon Prime where it’s just like, “Hello, it’s here.”
8. A Really Nice Journal and Pen
Get yourself a really nice journal with nice thick paper and a really nice pen, and just write about your life. That feeling of that thick paper and the pen that is just a good pen that can write smoothly – I love a good pen, and let me tell you, a good pen is fantastic.
But think about this journal in the long term. You’re writing down your thoughts, you’re writing down what’s happened to you, and think about if an ancestor or you’ve got a great-great-grandchild that eventually reads this. How incredibly cool would it be if you had a diary of a great-grandparent? If I had a diary of a great-grandparent who was in the late 1800s to early 1900s, that would be cool to learn about what they did day-to-day and how much you could take from that.
So I don’t just think about a journal as luxurious with nice paper and a great pen, but think about the long-term cool factor of passing that down to future generations.
9. One Really Nice Dinner Per Month
Treat yourself to a really nice dinner once a month. You can go to a really nice dinner with great food prepared by a fantastic chef for the same cost as going out to eat five times a month at just some regular, mundane casual restaurant or quick fast food that you completely forget about and that gives you complete indigestion the next day from eating it.
What’s more luxurious: saving up and having that wonderful night out for the same cost as you used to spend on completely useless meals, or continuing to waste money on forgettable food experiences?
10. Making Your Bed Like a Hotel
Make your bed properly. I’m talking about pulling the sheets super tight like at a hotel, and then going each night after a long day and pulling back that bed where it’s super clean and super tight and super freshly made. You know what I’m talking about, right? The feeling of a freshly made bed at the end of a long day – tell me that is not just a little bit of a luxurious feeling.
11. Quality Items That Last
Buy those quality items that last. It feels more luxurious to have two nice pairs of shoes that feel great on your feet than to have five cheap ones, or to have three nice sweaters that just feel wonderful, go with everything, and get you compliments rather than to have ten cheap sweaters.
You waste less and in the end you spend less. I have timeless things that I spent a smidge more money on years and years ago, and they still look brand new.
12. Garage Sales and Estate Sales in Nice Neighborhoods
For any of you that love garage sales or estate sales, if you want to find a luxurious item for less, that is the place to go. Look for garage sales in wonderful neighborhoods and estate sales also in wonderful neighborhoods. You can go in and find some fantastic stuff at a fantastic deal. It’s definitely a way to access luxury for less.
13. Nice Undergarments
We’re going to get a little bit personal here, and it’s spending a little bit more on nice undergarments. You know what I’m talking about. When we paid off our mortgage, it was one of the things that I let myself spend a little bit more money on for the first time in my life. Oh my goodness, it felt a little bit more luxurious.
I spent about fifty percent more than what I was spending on the brands before, but the feeling of something you have to wear all day long and the way that it makes your clothes look better is huge. For anybody who asks where I go, I went to Soma, which is a store where I got fitted completely, and I am never, ever looking back. Let me tell you, it definitely feels like a luxury. It’s very comfortable, makes my clothes look better, and I feel more confident. Highly, highly ten out of ten recommend.
14. Grocery Store Pickup
This definitely will save you money. I’ve had plenty of people say that this saves them from those impulse buys, but also think about how luxurious it feels. You aren’t tempted by unnecessary purchases, you don’t waste your time in the store, they bring everything to your car, you drive up, and all the stuff that you would have otherwise spent thirty minutes or more looking for, going through the checkout line, thinking “I have to do this every single week,” is just brought to you.
Sometimes they even help you put it in the back of your car. Oh my goodness, yes – it’s a big frugal luxury that’s going to save you money in the long run.
15. Using a Budget
The thing about when you use a budget is you feel luxurious because you feel like you have more money. For the first time, you actually have control of your money, it tends to help it behave, and you have more of it available for the things you truly want.
16. A Good Bubble Bath
This is super obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway: it’s a good bubble bath in warm water just to relax. I love anything with a lavender scent. Maybe you like eucalyptus, lavender, or vanilla. I love lavender bubble bath, maybe with some Epsom salts. It’s relaxation that is on another level and definitely feels luxurious to me.
17. Nice-Smelling Hand Soaps and Lotions
Along those same lines are hand soaps and lotions that have a nice smell that just make you smell something fragrant. That’s one of our five senses – smell – and to have something that smells delicious and relaxing can really feel luxurious and make you feel happy.
18. Decluttering Your Home
This may be shocking, but believe it or not, decluttering your home can make you feel luxurious. Why? When you reduce the amount of things that are trying to catch your eye or catching your attention, you feel more peaceful. The thing about stuff is it calls to you. If you’ve got a ton of stuff on a table, it’s yelling at you, going “Hey, when are you going to do something about me? Are you going to do something about this? Look at all this space that you could have if you didn’t have all this stuff here.” I don’t like all that stuff talking to me.
Think about when you go to a hotel. There are minimal things on display, they’re usually bigger, more statement pieces, there’s not anything really on the horizontal surfaces, everything’s well made and put together. It feels luxurious. You can do that within your home just by decluttering and removing those things that are pesky and are yelling at you for attention.
19. Slowing Down
This is probably the most impactful because it’s really a mindset shift, and it’s slowing down. When you are always on the go, when you are always busy, you will miss the richness of life. When you finally sit back and you understand what’s really going on, when you see what the purpose in your life is, when you look around at all of your blessings and all that you do have, you will feel contentment and richness like no other.
This mindset shifts from rushing through life to actually experiencing and appreciating it might be the most luxurious thing you can give yourself, and it costs absolutely nothing.
These nineteen frugal luxuries prove that living richly doesn’t require a large bank account. It requires intentionality, mindfulness, and the wisdom to know that true luxury often comes from the simple pleasures that money can’t necessarily buy – or that cost very little but provide enormous satisfaction and contentment.