When I started the post about Frugal Naysayers, I was surprised at how many people heard the excuse that "they don't have the time to be frugal". So the logical next questions would have to be, How hard is it to BECOME frugal? Is it time consuming? or do people just don't want to learn a new way of doing things? And has becoming frugal saved you time once you got into it? Are there some frugal tasks that do require more time? Share your stories.

Personally, I wouldn't say it is more time-consuming but it really does (for me) take more planning. I love to cook from scratch and don't find it time consuming but need to plan my meals and my grocery shopping accordingly. Cutting coupons is not necessarily time-consuming (DH does it while watching sports center) but it takes planning for me to use the coupons and coupled with the loss-leaders and best deals in the grocery ads. Hanging clothes outside doesn't really take all that long but I have to plan on weather (it's been so rainy here). Picking tomatoes from my garden doesn't take any time but prepping the garden area, planting and weeding take planning and time to complete.

It's a trade-off. What would you rather be doing than ____________(insert frugal activity here)?

I do agree that some frugal things take more time but again, for me, it's all about planning. I hope to learn to can someday--and have a garden to support that. I remember my mom and grandma spending a whole weekend canning vegetables, fruits and making jelly. Same with butchering--another whole weekend. But after those weekends, we had shelves of canned foods and a freezer full of pork. a good trade-off for the hard work.

It also depends where you are in terms of your life: busy with children, working more, health concerns, etc. When my mom got cancer, her frugal ways took a back seat to convenience. She didn't hang her clothes outside but used the dryer. She didn't make her choke-cherry and pear jelly the last 2 summers. She had a very small garden. She seldom cooked full-from-scratch meals or made her wonderful sour-dough bread. She just didn't have the energy.

But for people who respond with "I just don't have the time to be frugal" I suspect they either have never tried or are intimidated.

I think it becomes a mindset. I guess it would be easier/quicker to just toss out the ziploc bags than to wash and reuse them but I don't mind spending the extra few seconds. I do mind spending the extra money to buy more. It only takes a few minutes to hang my clothes to dry rather than toss them in the dryer. It takes seconds to turn off extra lights and unplug unneeded electrical devices and I don't mind keeping the air conditioner off when I don't really need it. I can find the time for those things because I don't want to open my hydro bill and have a heart attack. I can take a minute or two to cut up old t-shirts and towels to use as rags around the house and then I can also find the few minutes it takes to throw those rags in the wash because I hate the idea of buying and then tossing out disposables and paper towels.

Does all this save me time? Yes - I spend less time shopping and more time enjoying my life. 

One of my other favorite sayings is: "You can spend your money and save your time or you can spend your time and save your money." Everything that we do to make ends meet takes time instead of money. It takes longer to cook a meal from scratch out of your pantry than it does to grab a heat and eat meal at the store on the way home and throw it in the oven. It takes longer to paint a room when you're doing it yourself then when you hire someone to do it for you. It's easier to buy your clothes off the rack than it is to spend a few hours/days making an outfit. It definitely takes longer to home grow your fruits & vegetables than it does to buy them in the store picked, cleaned and ready to go.

mamasjob:

But for people who respond with "I just don't have the time to be frugal" I suspect they either have never tried or are intimidated.

 I have to agree mamasjob but they can be taught it's easier and more painless than they think.

My dc spent years shopping with me at BJ's cause I had a card through dh's employment there and she didn't. When we first started shopping together I would watch her buying habits and say nothing. She'd load her cart up with frozen premade meals, junkie premade snacks, sodas ect then cash out writing a check that dh would be held accountable for should it bounce. As soon as we left the store and loaded up her groceries in the car we'd take off on our next urgent errand...getting to the bank that check was written on where she deposited 2 checks written on 2 other accounts she had to cover the check she'd just written before it could bounce.

After a few trips I started asking her a couple questions while we were shopping. When she started to pick up a case of chocolate chip cookies I'd ask "You do realize you could make them from scratch for 1/3 the price and end up with 3xs as much." Her response the first half dozen times was 3 words long "Shut up Nancy". I would occasionaly point out to her that we both had the same sized family (at the time), she and her dh both worked while I stayed home with the dks living on dh's income which was 1/4 hers and her dhs' yet we didn't spend nearly as much as they did on food. Her responses ranged from them having more money to spend on groceries than we did my response was "If I wanted to waste money on junk like that I would but I can make it for 1/3 the price." which earned another "Shut up Nancy." To she worked hard and was too tired to do all the cooking my response was "I'm a housewife who works 24/7 and get tired all the time but still make that stuff from scratch." which earned another "Shut up Nancy." To her friends expected those name brand items on the stove when they came over my response was "If they're truely your friends then you don't need to impress them unless it's totaly inediable." Oddly enough that one didn't earn a "Shut up Nancy."

She started spending 1 day a week at home cooking meals from scratch for the week and freezing them and surprisingly her grocery bill went down, she didn't have to cook all the time just rewarm the meals and her friends liked her homemade stuff better than they did the store bought name brand junk (execept for her pies that woman can't make an edible pie crust if her life depended on it so that's about the only premade thing she buys and it's no longer name brand). She started checking out the surplus stores that I frequented and buying meat in mega bulk like I do after I bought a beef hindquarter and pointed out to her that I was eating sirloin steak for less than the chuck steak she was planning on buying. 

She's learned to spend her time being frugal and her grocery bill is now 1/4 what it was when we did the BJ runs and my family is now 2x the size of her. There is one comical side effect to the way I did things though. Even now  whenever she goes to reach for a box of something premade she hears my voice asking "Why are buying that? You do realize you could make them from scratch for 1/3 the price and end up with 3xs as much?" She'll turn around expecting me to be there sneaking up on her in the store only to discover I'm not there. She usually mutters "Shut up Nancy" puts it back then calls me to complain about me haunting her.

 I think there are too many variables in each individual's life for that to be an easy answer. It depends on the person's free time and the energy to accomplish what frugality. If you are working an 8 hour job or more, and you don't have a SAH spouse, and want to do scratch cooking then that prep work is going to take up alot of your free time after work. Coupon clipping and organizing takes up time and so does the planning to coordinate the coupons for the stores that will give them the best bargain. Clothes hanging takes more time than a dryer, and then you have to go out and get them off the line and fold them - more time.  You also have to coordinate with the weather. Canning is a great thing to do, but it takes vast amount of time to put in enough food till the next canning season, plus organizing the space to keep it all in. 

Now that being said Everyone should be as frugal as much as they are able to do. At whatever level it is that you can manage, that frugality is good for you, for your family and for the country as a whole. We just can't keep being a consumer and wasteful nation; we are now seeing the consequences of the past 25 years of run-away consumerism. The economy would not have been this way if we lived a pay-as-you go lifestyle, instead of living off of credit cards and re-financed housing. Edey

For me, I made a few changes at a time.  My husband is not a man that accepts change, so my changes had to be small and deliberate.  Now that he's a convert to my way of thinking, he's always trying to figure out ways for us to save a penny here and there. 

So over the course of a year, I changed my cooking habits, and I've saved our little family $50 a week in just groceries.  Of course that money is tripled if not more because we no longer eat out as much. 

A friend told me that once we had our son, my shopping and cooking habits would change.  She's convinced that once I go back to work, we will be eating out all the time again....oh think again my friend.  DH and I have already started planning for that.  He will be in charge of the kiddo while I clip coupons, cook, shop, whatever it is that needs to be done to save us some money. 

When I was single I would have said that I don't have the time....now I make the time.  A little time to plan, as someone else said, helps me gain a LOT more time to do the things I want to do.

I think,  in addition to what others have said, that it's habit as much as anything else.  Once you've acquired a habit - whether it's being frugal, or paying for conveniences, or whatever the habit is - it's easier to maintain the habit than it is to change it.   Habits have to be changed gradually - people who are frugal in ways that take time build that time into their days, and it's part of their lives - people who aren't used to those habits look at them as time consuming, and say they'd rather spend the money than the time, especially if they think they need to change everything all at once.  Also, a lot of people don't have the skills many frugal people have picked up over the years, and naysay those who suggest they can learn them - things like cooking from scratch, mending and/or making clothes, doing yardwork (especially beyond basic maintenance), basic home repair (I can't count the number of people who are shocked I can change light fixtures and faucets), and so on. 

Specialization has been pushed as "the answer" to all needs to the point that an amazing number of people have only one skill, and that is knowing which specialist to call - not frugal, but a cultural habit that many people have been taught.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

Granted, not all of the above appliess to every person - the character speaking is in a science fiction novel and owns a spaceship, and I'd rather avoid wars whenever possible - but the concept applies.  Specialists in many fields are necessary for those tasks that do not appear in most peoples' daily lives - but many people leave too much to specialists, to their cost and the specialists' gain.

Yes it is more time consuming for some things.

It takes time and sweat to cut 20 cord of wood, split and stack instead of just flipping a switch and turning on a gas furnace....just to get free heat. I'm sure when we get older we won't feel like doing it as much and will install a new high efficient furnace and flip a switch.

I think being frugal takes more time and planning too, as someone else said.  Hanging clothes to dry takes a lot more time for me because of the ironing that results from not using my dryer.  Cooking everything from scratch does take more time and planning-now that I make our bread I have to plan to get it done in the day.  Cleaning the house instead of having a housekeeper (I'm one of the few I know that don't have a housekeeper).  Takes a lot more time.  We do have someone that cuts the grass and weeds, would be more frugal without the gardener but the time savings for DH is big.  Little things (turning off lights, comparing prices at the store, etc) don't take as much time and are always worth doing.  DH used to sometimes pick up a pizza quick on the way home, that's a rare treat now, making one does take a lot more time as I usually make the dough too.

I will say that I am not naturally frugal-I WAS that person that thought it took too much time and energy to do all the stuff I do now.  And if I was still working full time, I probably would have to make some other choices due to lack of time (probably wouldn't make bread except on the weekends for example).  For a person trying to make frugal changes, it does seem overwhelming-when I was getting started it just seemed like a lot of work!  But, I took it step by step and added one thing at a time until it became routine.

So yes, I do understand the feeling that it is too much work and not enough time.  When you read a list of things that you can do more frugally, it can seem very overwhelming and huge!  Breaking it down helps, and one other thing-I have also learned that some things are a good use of my time and make a big difference, but some things are not (don't save enough doing them for the amount of time they take).

It's definitely a learning process for those taking the frugal plunge!  And it's not always easy either.  I still struggle with some things, and still am learning all the time.

To me the biggest part of making being frugal easier is being organized.   That means less clutter in the house, keeping on top of chores and planning ahead.   If there are dirty dishes and the kitchen is a mess then I'm not cooking, if there are no clothes to wear then we are out shopping, if we didn't plan ahead for company or a party then we are buying takeout or expensive food, if we didn't get a gift ahead of time we are buying something more expensive and the wrappings becasue we didn't plan ahead to see if we had wrapping paper.

I find that cooking takes me more time and doing some chores (I have two small children at home so everything takes longer).   Overall though since I am currently a SAHM I look at being frugal as my job and try to prioritize some items each day along with having fun with the kids being a priority too.

One thing I have found though is that using the "FlyLady' concept of doing anything for 15 minutes.   If I unload the dishwasher NOW it will make later easier, if I keep up with laundry it's easier, If I review my calendar and plan ahead for events, meals, etc it is ultimately easier.

I guess what I'm saying is that it is hard to get started but I do think that you can save money and eventually save some time once you get into a system/routine.