frugal

comparative more frugal · superlative most frugal

1. Careful or wise in expenditure; avoiding waste.

   frugal advice

   1 more example

   By what a frugal man annually saves, he not only affords maintenance to an additional number of productive hands, for that or the ensuing year, but [also] establishes as it were a perpetual fund for the maintenance of an equal number in all times to come.

   1776, Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book II, Chapter III

2. Obtained by or characterized by frugality.

   frugal breakfast

   3 more examples

   frugal fortune; frugal fare

   […] a frugal meal, which consisted of roots and tea,[…]

   1762, Oliver Goldsmith, edited by Austin Dobson, The Citizen of the World, volume II, London: J. M. Dent and Co., published 1891, page 48

   Pinching and paring he might furnish forth / A frugal board, bare sustenance, no more,[…]

   1868, Robert Browning, “Half-Rome” (chapter II), in The Ring and the Book