Time as Part of Frugal Living

When many people think of frugal, they think of saving money as in "watching their pennies." But I think that any limited commodity that we have in life should be marked with frugality. Time is a limited commodity. We only have 24 hours and seven days a week. Further, there are only 365 days a year and 52 weeks in a year. I could dissect time into a matter of minutes and seconds, but I am not a mathematician. So, we'll have to settle with the obvious breakdown that we're all familiar with since grade school.

As parents or just as couples, we need to always budget our time in terms of our philosophy of life and in terms of our perspectives. For instance, I'm a stay-at-home mom with two home businesses. At times, my heart's desire is to work on my passions---writing and teaching---in absolute quiet and during normal waking hours. However, since I have two busy children and a husband who would like some TLC too, after a hard day's work, I realize that I need to prioritize my passions after I've tended to the people in my life. In order to get a jumpstart on my day, I wake up earlier than I want to. I get quiet time to work on my passions while everyone else is asleep.

Your goal in frugally managing your time should include three major areas. These areas aim to prioritize your time, to organize your time and to do double duty on jobs that can be done while doing something else.

Here are five tips to help you with time management:

• Get control of your life. Buy a calendar and datebook. Put all appointments and scheduled activities in both the calendar and the datebook.

• Scale down your activities. Simple living includes not running to one activity after another.

• Develop a routine. For example, on Mondays wash the bed sheets. On Tuesdays, clean the bathroom and the kitchen, which can include mopping the floors. On Wednesdays, vacuum and dust your home, etc. By developing a normal routine to clean your house and other household duties, you become more efficient and can budget your daily hours into more productive chunks. Once the schedule becomes habit, chores won't seem as tedious and you will feel in control of your life.

• Do double duty with some chores. For instance, clean the kitchen sink and counters after washing the dishes and start doing dishes while you're cooking dinner. That way, you won't have a huge pile of pots, pans and other utensils from preparing the meal when it's time to wash dishes after dinnertime. Also return phone calls while washing dishes or folding the laundry.

• Teach your children, at a young age, to help with simple chores. Simple living includes everyone pitching in to do his or her part. Small children can put away their socks or pants in a drawer with some help from you. You can open the drawer for them, guide them to the drawer, all the while telling them, "The socks go right here. Good job, Sweetie! You did it!" Also, you can hand your child a dry washcloth so they can pretend to dust while you are dusting the furniture.

The above are only a few suggestions to get you started on developing a frugal lifestyle when it comes to wisely using your time. Try to change your lifestyle with one habit at a time. You'll find that you've more control over your life, and you'll be on your way to frugal living.