Thrifty lessons from the queen of budgeting
Thrift your life : cost-of-living hustles to waste less, save more and live well
By Heidi Ondrak
Recently, I picked up a copy of Thrift your life:cost-of-living hustles to waste less, save more and live well (by Heidi Ondrak) from my local library, in a bid to try and save some money and work on my new year's resolution of being more thrifty.
Some of you may know Heidi from TikTok, where she goes by the username The Duchess of Thrift, providing tips and advice on budgeting and thrifting to over 40,000 followers. If you don’t already follow Heidi, I’d recommend taking a look at her TikTok page as she regularly posts money-saving advice, especially on how to feed your family for less. Heidi also shares her secondhand looks on Instagram so be sure to check out her page (@duchessofthrift) for some thrifty inspo!
The book is full of practical hacks for saving money in all aspects of life, from reducing energy bills, advice on meal prepping, and how to avoid impulse buying.
There was also some helpful advice on how to save money if you have children and, although this section was not particularly relevant to me, I did skim through and pick up some tips to share with family members who have kids.
The section that particularly interested me was about how to avoid impulse buying, something I have struggled with immensely in the past!
Hedi offered some useful tips on how to reduce consumption, which ultimately leads to a happier planet and bank balance.
Here are some of the key takeaways I learnt from this section of the book in particular that I think might be useful to consider.
Avoid ‘Payday Millionaire Syndrome’
Hands up if you do a huge haul on payday with your newfound wealth? (guilty!). According to Finance Digest, 43% of Brits spend nearly half of their disposable income within 24 hours of being paid! Yikes.
Payday has a sneaky habit of making us think we have more disposable income than we actually do, because for those first 24 hours we often don’t have any bills or direct debits coming out, so we feel like we have all the money in the world to spend.
However, the stark reality is, going on a payday self-care splurge can be really detrimental to finances for the rest of the month, especially once those bills start coming out, often leaving us skint and counting our pennies before the month is over.
In the book, Heidi suggested creating a tracker to work out exactly how much you have coming in and going out, so you can work out exactly how much disposable income you actually have. This can be done on paper, in a spreadsheet or you can purchase trackers online from sites like etsy.
Keeping track of what you will have left after your outgoings allows you to spend more responsibly when the money hits your account, without having to live on beans on toast for the rest of the month!
Try making second-hand first choice
9 times out of 10, when you see something trending or being promoted by influencers on social media, there will be a thrifty version you will be able to get your hands on. Increasingly, influencers themselves are selling their PR goodies on the likes of Vinted and Depop as they only have one body on which they can wear all those clothes!
Although it might be more time-consuming to shop second-hand, in the long run it will be better for the environment and will probably save you lots of money. I often scroll through Vinted and see items still with tags on being sold at less than half of the RRP, so it's definitely worth putting in that extra effort to pay less than you would for new.
Browse second-hand sites or shops with the brands, styles and colours you know you like in mind, making it easier to narrow down your search and focus on what you actually need.
Which brings me on to my next point…
Ask yourself if it is a want or a need?
It’s easy to get lured into buying something shiny and new when your email is being bombarded with promotional offers and every influencer under the sun is telling you that you need that new Zara jacket.
But, how many times have you bought something on impulse, due to marketing or from seeing an influencer promote it, that really wasn’t your style or something you actually needed, never to be worn again?
The distinction between want and need is an important one. We might want that glitzy party dress to wear one time to our Christmas party, but what we actually need is a good-quality winter coat, because ours is falling apart! See the difference?
It can be useful to make an inventory, either mentally or on paper/online of everything you already have, and make note of where there are any gaps of things you could really do with. This allows you to reduce impulse buying and make more conscious purchasing decisions.
Heidi’s advice on the matter includes unfollowing influencers who negatively influence your purchasing habits, delegating shopping apps on your phone, and unsubscribing from marketing emails from brands that might tempt you to spend more money than you should and overconsume.
Final thoughts
Overall, this book was a thoroughly enjoyable read, written in a chatty and personable tone that made it quite hard to put down! There were lots of moments where I thought “what a great idea” and I would recommend anyone wanting to save money in any aspect of their life to read this book. Whilst I focused this blog primarily on the lessons learnt about how to avoid overconsumption, there really is something for everyone.
Alongside the tips and advice, the book offers a host of templates for you to fill in to help track, manage and reduce spending, alongside worked examples, which are super useful! As I was borrowing a copy from the library, I simply took pictures of the templates to recreate in my own time.
Let’s all do our best to be more thrifty this year, and our planet and purses will thank us later!
