Top Frugal and Simple Living Blogs of 2012

Simple living blogs and personal finance blogs first started popping up online around 2006. Or, maybe that is just when I first started discovering them. Regardless, over the last few years this niche area of blogging has become extremely popular with literally thousands of blogs starting and just as quickly fizzling out after a few months. Listed here are a few of my favorite simple living blogs that have continued to evolve and produce great content over time. The best blogger in the world is someone who either can tell a story exceptionally well, or provide incredibly useful information in an easy to read format. Most of the writers of these blogs can accomplish both.

Our Top Ten Favorite Simple Living Blogs

1.  Zen Habits

Started by Leo Babauta, in early 2007, this blog focuses on creating long term habits of simple living and an organized, purposeful life. Apparently, I’m not the only one who found Leo’s writings to be engaging, thoughtful and so elegantly simple and useful. The blog enjoys a readership of over a quarter million subscribers!

2.  Being Frugal

This blog was started just a few months after ZenHabits. While it doesn’t have quite the readership that Zen habits enjoys, Being Frugal has a couple of great articles I like to refer back to on occasion.

3.  Frugal for Life

With a ‘go live’ date of November 4th, 2005, I think Frugal for Life wins the prize for oldest blog in this list. It is a smaller, pretty simple blog focused on practical ways to save money and live frugally.

4.  Frugal Dad

Frugal Dad’s insights on family, career and money are wrapped in highly engaging infographics. They’ve really carved out a niche here and I have been guilty of examining one of these for up to five minutes at a time, taking it all in. 🙂 If you like to see boring financial, social and cultural data spiced up in an easy to read chart, head over there and subscribe to their RSS feed today!

5.  The Frugal Toad

Using an animal as a mascot for your brand or website has always been a great idea; but, a toad? Yep, but don’t let the name fool you. This blog is packed with great tips for saving money and good quality writing.

6.   Living Well on Less

Started in mid-2008, Living Well on Less has become a perennial fixture among simple living blogs. The only part that surprises me somewhat is how few RSS subscribers they’ve managed to garner in that length of time. Maybe they need a bright orange ‘subscribe’ button to let people know about it. 🙂

7.  Loving Simple Living

This blog, out of all the ones listed here, wins the prize for the best design. From the themed title across the top to the graphic animation showing off the best articles, the look and feel of this site says ‘professional at work’. It makes me want to go re-design Live Well Simply right now. 🙂

8.  The Simple Pastor

Phil Whittall, a pastor in the UK blogs about simple living with a purpose and examines some of the reasons to live simply as Christians, following Jesus’ example. The purpose for simple living is different for everyone, but as Christians, simple living frees up resources to create an impact on our world through missions, church and social aid.

9.  Christian Personal Finance

While focused more specifically on personal finance from a Christian perspective, Bob also writes about simple living and frugality. With over 26,000 subscribers, I’d say there is definitely an audience who enjoys his writings.

10.  Mnmlist

I like Leo’s writing style enough to list two of his blogs (the first one on this list is also written by Leo). As far as design goes, Mnmlist is the most, shall we say, “minimalist” approaches to web design out there. With no ads or graphics and lots of white space, this blog has a calming effect on web-weary readers. It’s worth checking out.