The Key To Saving Easily All Year, According to Frugal Living Expert Kate Kaden
Written by
Laura Beck
Edited by
Molly Sullivan
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If you’ve ever looked at your bank account and wondered what went wrong, frugal living expert Kate Kaden has a solution that might save your sanity and your wallet.
Kaden, who runs a popular YouTube channel focused on budgeting and saving money, said there’s one habit she doesn’t talk about enough that quietly saves her money all week long. The best part? You only do it once.
The Problem: Money Becomes Your Problem Solver
Kaden explained that most overspending doesn’t happen because people are careless. It happens when you’re stressed, overworked and tired.
“When you don’t have a plan, money becomes a problem solver,” Kaden said. “You didn’t make dinner, so you go do takeout. You forgot to run an errand in a timely manner, so you pay for convenience. You didn’t actually plan your meals, so you’ve got produce rotting in the fridge.”
The solution is simple but requires discipline: Plan your entire week before it starts, just like you’d plan your budget before the month begins.
Decision Fatigue Is Draining Your Wallet
Kaden pointed out that it’s not always the tasks themselves that exhaust you. It’s the endless stream of decisions you have to make every single day.
“What’s for dinner? When am I going to do the laundry? When do I have time to possibly run these errands?” she said. “It’s an endless decision-making smorgasbord at all times.”
Those tiny decisions add up and cost you time and energy, which Kaden called precious resources. When you’re running on empty, you’re more likely to throw money at problems spontaneously instead of handling them strategically.
How To Do Weekly Planning
Kaden recommended setting aside one focused hour on Saturday or Sunday to map out your week.
Step 1: Do a Brain Dump
Pull out your calendar and write down everything happening in the upcoming week. Appointments, practices, rehearsals, who needs a ride where, when you’ll cook dinner and how many times. Kaden stressed this doesn’t need to be perfect or fancy.
“If it’s living in your brain, it is stealing your energy,” she said.
Step 2: Decide Before You’re Tired
Once the week starts rolling, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel every single day. Make all your decisions during your planning session when you’re calm and focused.
“We make worse decisions when we’re exhausted and cranky and just want to eat and take a nap,” Kaden explained.
This is when you figure out which day you’ll batch your errands together, hitting the gas station, bank, post office and grocery store in one trip. You’ve already decided, so when the day comes, you just execute.
Step 3: Follow the Plan
This is where Kaden gets tough.
“You made the plan, you execute the plan,” she said. “You’re not going to feel like it sometimes, but you’re going to do it anyway because you did a plan once and then you’re going to execute the plan.”
If something doesn’t work, you adjust the plan next week. You learn from what went wrong and make a better plan moving forward.
Why This Actually Saves Money
Kaden said this habit has completely changed her life. She used to obsess over decisions and call her mother to help her get unstuck. Now she makes the plan and follows it, which means she gets things done without spending money in a panic.
“Being prepared is everything,” she said.
When you decide ahead of time while you’re calm, three things happen. It reduces impulse spending, stress spending and the “treat yourself” spending that happens when things feel hard in the moment.
Kaden emphasized that weekly planning isn’t about rigid control. It’s about protecting your money and yourself when your energy is low.
“You’re not being rigid, you’re being kind to future you,” she said. “You are setting future you up for success and less stress by pre-planning, doing the work ahead of time.”
If money keeps slipping through your fingers and you’re not sure why, Kaden said it might not be your budget that’s the problem. You might just be deciding everything too late, and that’s fixable. Plan once on the weekend when you’re fresh, then relax and execute all week. Spend with intention instead of exhaustion.
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