Frugality is NOT a dirty word
From a few of our recent discussions, I get the sense that some people are uncomfortable with the notion of frugality. These are some actual comments:
- “Frugality should not be about a total excision of quality of life. Unfortunately, this is how it seems most personal finance writers talk about it.”
- “I dislike this philosophy of ‘work hard all your life so you can retire and live a modest but comfortable life’. That’s an awful way to lead a life”
- “All this discussion of living modestly is crap.”
I don’t mean to pick on individual commenters — these statements are representative of many that I’ve read lately. While I understand these sentiments, I think it’s important to understand that frugality is not a dirty word. In fact, frugality is a valuable skill for building wealth.
Frugality Is NOT a Dirty Word
In The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley and William Danko collected and analyzed data from surveys of more than 1,000 millionaire households. They concluded:
What are three words that profile the affluent? Frugal frugal frugal. Webster’s defines frugal as “behavior characterized by or reflecting economy in the use of resources.” The opposite of frugal is wasteful. We define wasteful as a lifestyle marked by lavish spending and hyper-consumption. Being frugal is the cornerstone of wealth-building. … [Millionaires] become millionaires by budgeting and controlling expenses, and they maintain their affluent status the same way.
Frugality means choosing to make the most of your money, to focus on everyday costs, to recognize that small amounts matter. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a skill that nearly anyone can practice, and it lays the groundwork for sound financial habits that can be used throughout your life. Frugality keeps you focused on goals.
A New Way to See the World
All the same, it’s important not to confuse frugality with depriving yourself. Frugality doesn’t mean living like a pauper. If you read an article someplace (even at Get Rich Slowly) that says, “Give up your daily latte and you can save big bucks,” but the concept makes you feel like you’d be cheating yourself, then don’t do it. Frugality is about making smart choices to reach your goals; it’s not about living a life devoid of pleasure.
But always keep the larger goals in mind. If you’ve adopted a lifestyle of thrift or frugality, you are not being cheap when you buy generic food at the grocery store. You are not being cheap when you don’t purchase an iPhone or a Nintendo Wii. You are not being cheap — you are choosing a different set of values. You are working toward a greater goal. You are not depriving yourself — you have elected to live debt-free, or to follow a spiritual ideal, or to save for a trip around the world.
When you adopt a frugal lifestyle, you change your value system. You may acquire less Stuff, but you could gain more time, more freedom, more peace-of-mind. Making any lifestyle change — acquiring a frugal mentality, beginning an IRA, starting a diet — requires that you remain focused on the Big Picture. If you lose track of why you’re making sacrifices, the sacrifices become a burden.
Thrift is not an all-or-nothing proposition. There are different degrees. It’s important to discover what works best for your budget and your situation. Focus on your financial goals and make conscious choices that make you happy. Don’t bankrupt your future for gratification today, but don’t live so parsimoniously that you cannot enjoy the present.
Embrace the Get Rich Slowly mantra: Do what works for you.
Frugality in Practice
Over the past eighteen months, I’ve published an irregular series exploring my own adventures in frugal living. Here are some highlights:
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There are 58 comments to "Frugality is NOT a dirty word".
I think there is always a balance one must maintain and it is up to the individual to decide that balance.
I do, however, agree with many of the posts you are referring to JD that speak of keeping, in my mind, a much healthier balance than those who speak about frugality in the PF world (generally). I think it is VERY possible to lead both a non modest living and build wealth; they do not have to be mutually exclusive. Enjoy life now AND later.
I think frugality is an easy tool for everyday people like me to live a life of choice. I want my money to serve me(savings and investments), not me serve my money(credit card debt). It’s only a couple of generations ago that frugality was the norm.
Frugality actually makes you happier.
Anyone who believes that buying stuff can actually give them happiness is very confused and has not had a very Socratic view on life.
Buying crap only gives you a perceived pathway to happiness. You do not have deep memories of the mercedes, you have deep memories of, say, your kids in your mercedes picking each other’s noises. The same memory that could be found in any other car.
I started my life as an entitled person, money was no concern and buying crap was seen as a way to increase self worth. After realizing it meant nothing and they only way to find happiness was through the self (never took drugs I promise) my goals in life underwent a huge shift and now I am happier and more christian (as in following teachings of jesus, not a nut in a religion.) then ever before.
The biggest thing that caused this shift was the realization that while free trade works in theory people have prevent complete free trade (corrupt individuals) preventing a universal increase in quality of life. Meaning, since wealth is a comparative notion. For every extra amount of wealth you have, there is an equal amount of poverty and I refuse to support sweatshops and child labor, both very un-christian, so I can be a pompous ass who thinks he gets pleasure from useless crap.
I think that people sometimes associate frugality with endless penny pinching in all areas of life. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can make a few simple frugal decisions and reap the benefits for years without having to “work” at all.
Example: I bought a Toyota Corolla in 1999. I’m still driving it today. I automatically save $ on car payments (which long ago dropped to $0), gas (39 mpg highway), insurance, repairs, etc. When I compare myself to co-workers with their luxury cars, I’ve literally saved tens of thousands of dollars. But here’s the key – I LOVE my Corolla. I brag about having the biggest piece of crap car (jokingly). It’s great car.
Knowing that I could purchase 10 luxury cars in cash thanks in part to this Corolla is worth much more to me than driving a brand new expensive car.
I thought the anti-frugality commentors sounded like spoiled children. It’s sad to see what has become of American culture. We’re a nation of mindless shoppers, and virtues such as frugality are looked down on.
I’ve seen how people live in third-world countries. They’re people just like us. The go to work, come home and have dinner, go to sleep, then wake up and do it all again the next day. They have the same concerns about life, love, family, and the future that we do. But they’re not the mindless consumers that I see here in the US. They don’t buy stuff just for fun, they but stuff they need. What a novel concept! So, knowing all this, it makes me mad to hear the tone of entitlement in some of these comments. People need to wake up and learn what real sacrifice is.
I agree being frugal isn’t about depriving yourself. My wife and I set up a plan that required us to practice frugality in various ways (none of which made us less happy) and channelled some of that saved money into a vacation fund. Then we spent the money taking or son on a vacation in the Yucatan, had an amazing time, the kid learned to swim, and we didn’t use our credit cards to pay for the trip at all. I think people don’t associate Carribean vacations and frugality, but for us we couldn’t have had one without the other.
As a follow up to my post (#4), I should add that once you learn to love living simpler (something that I’m still working hard to do), the wealth you accumulate means less to you.
My wife and I have a substantial net worth now, yet our focus has moved more away from material items. These days, wealth represents the freedom to spend time with family and friends and enjoy simple pleasures of life. It represents freedom of the stress of making ends meet.
Our goal now is to pay off our last debt – our mortgage. I don’t care if we could squeak out a little, or even a lot, more money by doing something else with our money. I want to be debt free.
We also want our children to graduate from college debt free with the full understanding of what it means to avoid debt.
I’m surprised when I hear people say that being frugal means being unhappy. Since changing my ways (living more frugally), I’m much happier now than I was driving a new car with debt hanging over my head.
For those people that think living modestly is crap, give it a try. You’ll find modest living much more enjoyable to living it up on credit.
I think all the negativity toward frugality reveals a rather glaring lack of independent thought. No one likes to be told what to do, and people who rebel against being frugal can’t seem to see past the advice to what possible benefits it will bring them. And it seems to me that people with greater financial security have greater freedom; with greater freedom comes a relaxed sense of control over one’s life – which is exactly what your cranky commenters seem to lack. They don’t want to give up their comforts because they feel trapped in the lifestyle they’ve created for themselves.
Frugality is not about giving up the things that bring you great joy. It’s about realizing what is important to you, and then cutting back on all the stuff that isn’t.
I love to watch movies, so I have Netflix and make room in my budget to go see them. On the other hand, I often regret eating out and wish I’d saved my money and ate at home. Frugality is recognizing the pattern of regret when eating out, changing my behavior, and saving that money for myself. What many people would do is ignore it altogether and then wonder why they’re always broke. Frugality is really about a personal priorities.
It’s all about spending on your passions and limiting elsewhere. No deprivation involved. Just living within your means and skipping out on stuff you don’t really need. It pays off big time in the long run.
I don’t think enough can be said about choices. Some of us are forced into our frugal ways by life circumstances, but most frugalites I know are choosing to be so. When it’s buy choice, it doesn’t seem like deprivation at all.
I like what you said about there being degrees of frugality. For example, neither of my sisters will use the dishwasher because they feel it’s an extravagant waste of money and water.
I disagree, especially with the newer models, but what’s more important is that even if they did use a little bit more water or money, I would still choose to use mine. I feel the time saved could be used to post a few things on eBay to sell or to spend some extra quality time with my family. Both very worthwhile.
Frugality is not just about pinching pennies. It’s also about making a simpler, better life.
My philosophy about frugality is that there needs to be a balance between saving money and maintaining a good quality of life. What constitutes a “good” quality of life is up to the individual. That said, I do think a lot of personal finance writers go overboard on the concept of frugality.
Case in point . . . I’ve been trying to get my wife on board for the idea of doubling our savings in order to retire early. There was an article recently making the blog rounds on two middle-income couples on track to retire by 45 or 50. I forwarded this to my wife but all she got out of the article was that in order to retire early the couples had resorted to dumpster diving to save money on clothes for their children. It ended up being a complete turn-off to her and was a big set-back in my attempts to convince her.
What some may find inspirational can also have the opposite effect when the concept of quality of life seems to be completely disregarded.
Another good discussion.
At our house, “frugality” means that we choose to economize in areas of our lives where we don’t mind. Then, we can choose to splurge on things that give us joy or cause us stress.
We wouldn’t be able to splurge and still accumulate wealth if we weren’t economizing in other areas. At this point in our lives, with young children, we don’t want to work harder or longer to make more money to live “better” than we do.
(I am not at all knocking those who need to or want to work insanely long hard hours with young children. We are grateful to have the choice not to.)
I strive to be frugal and generous. Frugal with resources, generous with time, gifts, hospitality, etc. It gives me great pleasure to pick up a restaurant tab, make contributions to good causes, etc. It also gives me great satisfaction to conserve resources, which is my definition of frugal. It is codeterminant with ecological responsibility. Most Americans waste a ton of resources – we consume, but don’t derive full benefit. Wasting money and wasting resources amount to the same thing.
It comes back to that endless blog topic, frugal versus cheap. Until I started reading some of these blogs and books I associated the word and concept of “frugality” with people I’d met who were genuine misers and cheapskates. I certainly have had a better understanding over the last few years, but I was open to it, perhaps these commenters aren’t.
Frugality is about choosing to not keep up with a consumerist culture. It means leaving materialism behind and focusing on things that really matter, like personal growth, family and security. It means living in a way that impacts the environment lightly and those around you in a big way.
To many people, I think “Frugality” is a dirty word. Your definition is technically correct, but I don’t think it’s how people view the word anymore. The meaning has evolved into something else, almost like the word “gay” (I’m NOT implying gay has a negative connotation, so no one get upset).
Generally though, I think people are lashing out against the advice that you need to delay gratification. To many, the entire purpose of money is to buy the stuff you want as quickly as possible. The only reason they save is so they can buy big-ticket items that they can’t afford right now.
For these people, I think it’s also acceptable to always be broke, as long as they can buy the stuff they want. They’re willing to sacrifice long-term prosperity in order to create the life they want RIGHT NOW. They’re trading the future for the present.
The problem is, people think they have to choose one or the other. They say, “I can be happy now or I can be happy later.” This is based on a scarcity mindset, that you’ll never have enough money to buy everything you want, so you have to choose what and when.
Optimally though, you would get to have everything you want right now AND in the future. You would live in a state of total abundance where you could have anything you want it, whenever you want it, both now and in the future.
Some people think that such a state is impossible to attain, but it’s not. Bill Gates lives there, as do most billionaires. In fact, most people can buy pretty much anything they want AND have plenty of money left over at around $500,000 per year. Or, maybe $1 million per year. The point is, it’s attainable.
Going back to your mantra of “Do what works for you,” the only personal finance formula that I subscribe to is the optimum one. I’m working toward a state where I experience absolute financial freedom both in the present and in the future. To do that, I have to both increase my income and have the discipline to set aside a portion for the future.
To me, that’s the ultimate financial goal, and it’s the only one I care to work toward.
To me, frugality may not be the right word. That word has come to mean for many people an emphasis on saving money for saving money’s sake. Cheapness. Miserly. I don’t necessarily agree with those views, but I understand how the word has come to resonate with that.
To me the better principle is one of detachment. Or more so, a greater attachment to my true desires. So the notion is simply to recognize that everything I want isn’t necessarily what I truly desire at the deep level of my need for happiness. It is to have a bit of detachment from the consumerist, materialist culture. Not to deny being influenced by it, but to have enough attachment to the truth to be willing to ask the question: do I truly need or want this? Will it make me happy?
This is not to say that I don’t buy frivolous things at times. I am far from perfect. But there is a way in which this way of living is not so focused on earning a pile of cash at the cost of my happiness, but is instead steadfastly focused on my happiness, but recognizes that most of the consumerist/materialist things I could be spending my money on don’t really make me happy. They make me feel good, for a time. But happy? I’m not sure about that.
I think being frugal gives you more options with your money. Doing it the ‘regular’ way, I had no money leftover with my paychecks. Now I have some leftover money(interning so still not a large amount) and I have no credit debt and actually have some money in the bank if I need it.
Living the ‘regular’ way was depriving me of choice, I couldn’t do things because I couldn’t afford it. If I did it anyways, I put in on the credit card end out resenting the price of going out.
I’d take frugal living any day of the week.
For me, frugality is about being mindful of how I spend my finite amount of money. I was spending between $10 -15 a day on lunch and snacks when I could be just as happy with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a piece of fruit. Now that money is available to spend on things that really make me happy.
The reality is that I don’t have an unlimited amount of money to spend and I have to think about where it goes. Being mindful of how I choose to spend my money, instead of wasting it, means I end up happier.
Sounds like we just need to take a new word and make it mainstream… Time to consult the thesaurus – With the popularity of 300, how about Spartan?
Main Entry: frugal
Synonyms: Spartan, abstemious, canny, careful, chary, conserving, discreet, meticulous, parsimonious, penny-wise, pocket, preserving, provident, prudent, saving, sparing, thrifty, unwasteful, wary
Antonyms: extravagant, spendthrift, wasteful
Excellent post JD! This is a good reminder of why I read this site instead of some of the other PF blogs (wisebread comes to mind >
I think that the commentator (and others like him/her) who said “I dislike this philosophy of ‘work hard all your life so you can retire and live a modest but comfortable life’. That’s an awful way to lead a life” has been sucked in by the very powerful cultural forces all around us that make “a modest but comfortable life” seem like failure. We live in a culture that primarily holds up excess as “success.” We don’t have a national/societal narrative that says that conservation is really good, that having “enough” is a valuable achievement… Instead, our narratives posit as normal and desirable levels of achievement that most people can’t meet–certainly not without debt and overwork….
It’s true in standards of beauty, in standards of living, etc.
I think people get confused between the word FRUGAL and the word CHEAP, there are not the same
Margaret, I think you nailed it with the PB&J analogy. Frugality means we reduce our expenditures in some areas to save them for others that really matter.
Oops the rest of my comment got cut off…
Mainly I want to say, my [broke] friends who make fun of my frugal living and call me ‘cheap’ are noticing that I still spend money and enjoy life, and after watching me for three years, some are starting to change their habits as well.
I’m with JaggNogg. I also have a ’99 Corolla that is paid off, and I only have 160,000 miles on it. I hope to have it many more years. I love that it’s low maintenance, and gets great gas mileage. I’m not riding around in the newest car or the fanciest car, but knowing that I don’t have car payments and hefty maintenace fees makes me happy. I can put my money elsewhere until I’m ready to buy a diffrent car. Of course, I’d probably buy another Corolla when the time comes, but that’s my frugal choice.
I did some volunteer work a number of years ago in one of the poorest communities in the United States. I’m talking apartment buildings with concrete walls and floors, shared bathrooms, no hot water, and limited electricity. The people who lived in these apartments didn’t have cars; they relied on public transportation or they walked. Many of them didn’t even have regular jobs. There would be a few places where they’d gather every day, and most days someone would come and hire them. Some days they wouldn’t, so they’d just stand around hoping someone would need help later in the day.
That was an eye opener for me. I was living in a modest apartment at the time, but it had nice carpet, I could hang stuff on the walls, and I could have a hot shower any time I wanted it. I had a computer with high-speed Internet access, a nice stereo, and a big CD collection. My TV was really old but I had one. My car was modest, but I had one, so I could drive anywhere I wanted on a whim. My humble, middle-class lifestyle would have been pure luxury to pretty much anyone in that community.
I don’t compare my lifestyle to the people around me. As long as I’m better off than my parents were at a comparable age, I don’t see any reason to think of myself as deprived. Even today’s low-end stuff is so far ahead of what they could buy in 1973. I buy inexpensive stuff that I know will last, fix stuff when it breaks instead of using that as an excuse to buy something shiny and new and expensive, bank the difference, and dream of the day in the near future where I’ll have no monthly bills aside from utilities and taxes.
I don’t think anyone’s going to feel sorry for me when I get to that point.
BALANCE is the key
like you said.. being frugal means cutting unecessary expenses in your life and sacrificing on certain things in order to reach a GREATER goal.. whether that be saving for retirement, first home, emergenices, hobbies, vacations, gadgets, or whatever it is you enjoy
yes i have a luxury car.. but i bought it used (saved nearly 20k alone buying it 4 years old).. and it has been paid off for 2 years now.. i’ve always loved cars.. so spending a little extra in order to get a QUALITY car is important to me.. plus i always have the option of selling it or trading it in if needed
i also have a commuter car (1996 tercel) that is my point A to point B car.. so yes i am practical.. both my cars have over 100k miles on them
i spend around $5-10 on lunch everyday.. yes it adds up.. but it’s worth it to me.. because i enjoy eating out.. i like having variety in my life.. that’s my thing
it all depends on what your GOALS are.. when i still had payments on my car.. i wasn’t eating out everyday.. i wasn’t going on expensive trips.. that was the sacrifice i had to make.. like i said.. it’s all about balance
if you have 10k saved up and 100 in cc debt.. go ahead and go on that vacation
if you have $100 saved up and 10k in debt.. then think twice
oh and dave.. that sounds like a great experience.. makes you appreciative of what you have.. i admit sometimes i take some of the advantages and blessings i have for granted
i want to go back to the philippines (where my parents grew up).. i haven’t been there since the 5th grade.. sometimes when you see what poverty really is.. you second guess some of the decisions you make.. makes you see the difference between WANTS and NEEDS.. and you realize what priorities are more important in your life.. family, health, etc..
I agree that balance is the key. I just wrote about this the other day. There is no harm in spending money on your passion but save where you can elsewhere.
I think most people leaving negative comments are either in denial or they are just upset because they see these articles as an attack on their lifestyle. These articles are viewable many people and since blogs have comment options, they will let you hear it. I think its human nature to think you are right and everyone else is wrong. When you’re driving, everyone driving slower than you are idiots and everyone driving faster than you are crazy maniacs.
I think these comments are harmful to others who may actually benefit from practicing frugality. Obviously there are two ways to get rich, make more or save more so you can ultimately invest more. I don’t think its wise to be a drug user then going on an article about don’t do drugs and leave a comment saying “don’t listen to that crap, you’re missing out on all this fun.”
Its all about balance, and there is no need to bash frugality. Imagine how silly it would sound for someone to bash the idea of making more money. After all thats the only other way.
My husband and I are older (early/mid 50s) than most people who frequent the site. We both went to grad school (late start on working; late start on kids), work in a lowpaying field in a lowpaying state(education/LA). Our frugality has been the subject of derision for years. BUT as we are now approaching the “other side” of frugality, things are great. Many of our colleagues are mired in debt. We have paid off our house, saved for our children’s college (we are debt averse). In the past year we have taken trips to CA, MA, FL (all to visit family), PARIS! (second trip for all of us). Our daughter is going to Japan over winter break for 10 days. Our son, who selected a college that offered him a 2 week China trip last summer, will be going to Korea for several weeks next summer with friends. We just replaced our wood porch steps with bricks put in by a Creole artisan bricklayer! We’re getting a new kitchen this year as well. (Oh…and we have to replace our central air..so we’re doing that too).
I hope this doesn’t sound like bragging. But I never really wanted all the meals out and designer bags that the culture tells me I want. And there’s not a single thing that I regret not buying.
Dave Farquhar, thanks for writing that.
I think one of the keys to being happy while living frugally is to be grateful for what you do have.
Humans are wired to be more unhappily aware of what they don’t have than to be content and happy with what they do have. One way to get a more grounded perspective is to spend time with people who are getting by with a lot less. (Remember those happiness studies, that it’s easier to be happy if the people around you are less well off than you than if they’re more well off?)
Two thumbs up for Laura at comment #19, who said that frugality gave her options. Exactly. When I lived in a luxury condo in a highly desirable area, paying other people to do my cleaning and laundry, I had a lifestyle some might have envied, but I had no choices. I had to keep working 60+ hours per week at a stressful job to pull in that high salary. I had to take blood pressure medication to handle the effects of the stress. I had to dress and act appropriately for the affluent company I kept.
Nowadays, being frugal is definitely about choices. Cutting costs allowed me to reduce my work hours to spend afternoons with our kid. I have time to make healthier, more affordable meals for all of us. Our comfortable home is always neater and guests more welcome than when I had to worry about clutter. Blood pressure medication is a thing of the past.
I’m no earth mother type, nor am I a Martha Stewart wannabe. If a frugal choice made us feel deprived, we would change it. Frugality isn’t always about doing without, sometimes it’s simply about doing the most you can with what you have. For example, we plan to replace some overgrown shrubs on the west side of our home next spring. We could simply plant more decorative shrubbery and be done with it, but instead, we’ll plant berry bushes and dwarf apple trees. They’ll be pretty *and* productive — giving us fruit for eating, gifts, and for the neighborhood wildlife, and the trees will provide some privacy for one room of our house. We’ve used this formula before: this year, I made jelly from the fruit of a crabapple tree that we planted to replace a half-dead evergreen. Do we feel deprived when we spread our morning toast with some delicious homemade jelly (that only cost a couple of dollars for 8 pints: sugar and new jar lids)? Not one bit.
I think most people understand the difference between frugality and cheapness. However, what impact would you say dramatic and memorable stories about extreme frugality have on the small minority who do not?
I think that if I were new to the game and someone advocated becoming homeless or eating food that others have thrown out I might be a bit put off.
Then again I suspect most of the above hecklers are just trolls.
I’m going to agree with several others on this string.
(1) If you make a couple of big frugal choices (i.e. driving a paid off car) you have a heck of a lot more money to get you to financial peace (plus you still have enough extra $$ to blow on lattes or pedicures or comic books).
(2) I’ve taken 2 fabulous (luxury) vacations this year (one with my girlfriends and one with my husband). For both vacations, I stayed at 5 star hotels, eat out at fabulous restaurants, did a tiny bit of shopping, etc. How did I do it, I planned way ahead to get super duper deals on the hotels and flights and I saved money each and every month so when it came time for the trip I had a fabulous time but did not come back to a big credit card bill.
My husband and I joke that we are richest poor people we know. We are, of course, no where near being poor but compared to our peers and friends we act the poorest. We make frugal choices but we could make non frugal choices if we woke up one day and decided that we wanted new cars and new furniture, etc.
I get into this with my wife, and find it a very frustrating topic. She is fine living with multiple days of fancy take-out food rotting in the fridge, bouncing checks when we actually have enough money not to, clothes bought and left in their bags for *years*, six complete sets of dishes, vacations when we can’t afford them, new cell phones – and on and on.
It’s not just the money, but it’s the sheer weight on our lives of all that unappreciated clutter, and how little room there is left for our *selves*.
I rarely bring this topic up since it causes all kinds of strife that to me is often worse than the clutter and waste. But when I do speak out I hear many of the fears and assumptions reported and expressed here: that “frugality” means looking like you’re poor, go to bad schools, won’t learn culture and so on. It’s identified with the stigma of poverty, and not with the foundation of wealth.
My wife grew up poor, and learned about frugality not as a positive attitude but as a burden and even a punishment, made especially worse when confronted with all the images of wealthy people enjoying their lives in ways unavailable to her (at least that’s how it looked).
The very strange thing – and I suspect many others operate this way – is that while she’s very afraid of being poor, that fear seems to drive her to behave in irrational ways that cause financial hardship for her and for our family. Instead of evaluating a purchase rationally (“can we afford this and still achieve our goals?”), she is driven by her past emotions (“I deserve this because I’ve worked hard my whole life”, “I couldn’t afford this then so I’ll buy it now”, “I don’t want to look like I’m poor”, and so on).
Those are all valid feelings and should be honored, but not to the degree of self-destruction.
I’ve tried to explain that “frugality” isn’t a dirty word and that it’s even a virtue, and that the personal and financial benefits of behaving frugally would more than make up for the temporary thrill of impulse buying. But it falls on deaf ears.
My concern is that when it comes time for retirement, she’ll have saved very little and be surrounded with mountains of crap.
I must confess I don’t want to share that future, and hope she realized that in time to turn things around.
While I disagree with the original posters, I can see where they would get a negative idea about being frugal or living simply. I remember skimming an article about “freegans” that was disgusting to me – saving money by dumpster-diving is just not worth it to me. I have alternatives to doing that and really can (and want to ) avoid it.
However, living within my means or not going out to eat every day is a form of living simply or frugally and one that helps me attain longer term goals by getting out of debt sooner. Once out of debt, I can work less to make money and work more for others or spend more time with my family – not things I avoid now, but I do work outside the home. I can also take that money that currently goes toward paying off debt and use it for charity or to just do good things – something I can’t always do right now. Do I have to deny myself a little now? Yep. Will it be worth it to be out of debt? Yep. Will I have more freedom later by living simply now? Yes again. Do I actually have to deny all pleasure to do this? No – I pick what’s frugal for me and what exceptions I might take to have that simple pleasure.
I know that there are times I really want something, but I’ll stop, save for it, decide if it’s worth it, and if I still want it after a while I can get it. I bought a Wii after lots of contemplation, having decided it was a pleasure that would be worthwhile – not for everyone, but a decent choice for me. The hardest part of mentioning frugal is trying to get people not to equate that with cheap, deprived, miserable, etc.
If you’ve only been frugal when forced to, then yes, it’s about deprivation and pain and icky.
If you have enough money or attitude that frugality is a choice, then yes, it can be empowering to know that money saved by packing lunches can finance a fun vacation – or vice versa 🙂 And not buying things can mean not having to store them. Although since turning 40, I find library books aren’t “At least I don’t have to find shelf space for them” – it’s “Thank God I don’t have to *dust* *them*….”
“At our house, “frugality” means that we choose to economize in areas of our lives where we don’t mind. Then, we can choose to splurge on things that give us joy or cause us stress.”
That’s exactly what it means to me too. I haven’t gotten rid of my car and TV or started doing my own oil changes, but I have done a lot of things to save money that don’t affect my lifestyle. To me, frugality means not wasting money.
I switched to VOIP phone service because it cut my phone bill in half. I buy clothes on sale because I don’t care about fashion. I’ve had the same PC for five years because the only thing it can’t do is play the latest games, and I have consoles to play games on. When I go on vacation, I don’t stay in five star hotels because I don’t care about frills and luxury. I don’t go on vacation to hang around the hotel. I bought a generic mp3 player rather than an iPod because it’ll play music just fine and cost half as much.
At the same time, I don’t make my own lunch and I have a maid clean my house and wash my dishes. Paying someone else to do my chores is the best use of my money I’ve ever found, because it not only means I don’t have to do it but also that I don’t have to think about doing it.
If I had to give a definition of frugality it would be “spending less on things that don’t matter.” When something bugs me I deal with it right away, but I don’t “fix” things that don’t bug me. I replaced my old mp3 player because it didn’t hold enough music and the batteries didn’t last the whole trip to my girlfriend’s and back. I haven’t replaced my 15 year old car because it still runs fine and does everything I need it to do.
Frugality = MoneyWise
Just because I choose to not purchase the latest gadgets or the $5 coffee everyday, does not make me ‘frugal’; It makes me intelligent about my money and my wants. We can do away with the word ‘frugal’ if it bothers people so much. Just use moneywise. Example: I am moneywise because I do not spend money on things I do not want or need. I am saving my money so i can enjoy life without debt. I do this by being moneywise.
If someone can’t handle hearing the word, just use a different one. Doesn’t mean anything has changed about you, other than not getting bothered by others. ;P
It’s funny how what one person sees as a splurge can be seen as frugal by someone else. When I finished college, I saved up and bought a used 10-year-old Corolla. I bought it outright (it was about C$7k at the time). It was in great shape. I was really proud to own a car outright, since few people in my hometown owned without debt. And few in my old neighbourhood had Corollas, even used ones. One day my car was broken into. I said that it appeared that it had been vandalized and rooted through. My co-worker (who was a year younger than I was) said that was obvious, since “No one is going to steal that car.” I muttered something about not owing anything on the car. He said, “I should hope not.”
I was stunned. He saw my car as a beater, whereas I saw it as a bit of a luxury item. Of course, in an office where most of my co-workers had BMWs and sports cars, I guess it wasn’t seen as a luxury.
However, 11 years later, my dad is still driving that car. I’m not sure it’s had more than $2000 in maintenance & repairs in all these years.
Frugality is generally a good thing. Being “frugal” in everything is not frugality, it is being cheap. And yes, cheap is bad.
Also, the opposite of frugality is not over-consumption — which is what many posters seem to think.
I prefer to live on my own. I also prefer to leave the country when I take holidays. So, I make trade-offs, and I live with roommates. That is how I see frugality: making a tradeoff in one area, in order to get more in another.
A few of the comments I’ve read talked about [sic] “frugality being the norm x years ago.” That’s a flawed argument. WWII — yeah, living with a lack of basic consumer goods on hand changed how a generation lived (because *they had no choice*), and that spilled over to the next generation. Cutting back on consumption wasn’t a countrywide “Let’s Do This!” choice, it was simply a lack of goods available. People also tend to forget that personal finance and economics is just different now and sometimes far more advantageous — know any software programmers? That job didn’t exist on the same scale, in need or pay, in the 50s.
I also think that a disproportionate amount of “frugality” advocates [aka cheap-os] reek of reverse-snobbery. Many of those people [whom I’ve met] feel it’s a sin to make more than a poverty wage or have any kind of luxury in [their] lives. “Oh, you’re working for The Man, and thus inherently compromising yourself….sure, I could make more money doing that, too, but I refuse to enter the corporate regime and sell my soul.” Give me a break. I work for myself, and I won’t apologize for making good money or for having the skills that create my earning potential. It’s manipulative BS if someone wants to make me feel guilty about the luxuries I indulge in. So what if I almost bought a cashmere sweater today. So what if I occasionally stay in very nice hotels when I travel. I earn the money, I budget for the expense. I pay my bills, save money, and pay my IRA monthly. Exactly what is the problem?
Personal finance is not about whether or not you were the paragon of cheapness and sacrificed more this month than anyone you know. Make your financial goals and then work to make them happen.
Frugality is a lifestyle *choice* — not a mandatory activity. And people who say that frugality should be The Way of Living are no better than people who advocate and enable over-consumption.
I think that when lots of frugal options are suggested people maybe feel bombarded but not many people are going to want to do them all. You pick and choose and do what works for you (stealing a GRS mantra). If it makes you miserable then its not worth it, but you won’t know that until you try.
“So what if I almost bought a cashmere sweater today. So what if I occasionally stay in very nice hotels when I travel. I earn the money, I budget for the expense. I pay my bills, save money, and pay my IRA monthly. Exactly what is the problem?”-SR
Very good points. I may buy one really nice sweater or dress that will last me years, yet my coworkers don’t understand how I don’t shop on a normal basis. Meanwhile, they are in debt up to their eyeballs and buying cheap clothes and shoes every other week so they can look fashionable (They never go to the dry cleaners because it’s too expensive). Last I checked, quality never goes out of style.
This is a great thread. 🙂
May I suggest a word to replace frugal? Mindful.
We should be mindful of the amount of joy a purchase gives us. This allows us to carefully consider what we spend on, and reserve spending for only those items/services which bring us the most joy.
Emily, I’m glad to know I’m not the only 40+ reader!
Luke, I have to respond to you (#39). My wife and I had the same problem, before we were married. We probably fought more about money than about anything else.
What turned her around was when she heard John Commuta (“Transforming Debt into Wealth”) say that debt is renting–as long as you’re paying interest, you don’t own something, you’re still renting it. The sooner you pay off your debt, the sooner you’re not renting, so it makes sense to save money any way that you can.
The other thing that helped was when I said to imagine what life will be like when we’re not making $2,000 worth of mortgage and car payments every month. We’ll be able to buy just about anything we’d been putting off in a matter of months. One of the first things we’ll buy is the china cabinet she wants. We’ll go to estate sales in classy 100-year-old houses and when we find one she likes, we’ll buy it. We’ll probably pay less for an antique than the price of a new one, and we’ll have impeccable quality.
Some people call us cheapskates, but really it’s just delayed gratification.
JD, just to clarify something since one of those comments you mentioned is mine. I am NOT against frugality. I practice it on a day to day basis. However, I think people have gone to an extreme with the frugal lifestyle. They have made frugality a goal rather than a tool. I believe that being frugal is important because it is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.
Being frugal helps me enjoy my life more because I have money to spend on the things that really matter. Too many people focus just on frugality and forget that life is about more than just pinching pennies. They make frugality a goal rather than a tool to achieve their goals. That’s what I meant with my comments.
Gal
60in3, who are you to say somebody else has gone to extremes in frugal lifestyles? That’s THEIR life — they have the right to live however they want. If you don’t think ABC or XYZ fits with what you want, hey nobody is forcing you to do anything. This is just generic advice posted on blogs for general population consumption — the headlines don’t say “Advice for 60in3 – dumpster dive for food!”
Let’s get some perspective here please. You are one of 10 billion people on this planet. Perhaps one of 10 gigazillion sentient entities in this universe. In a microspan of this universe’s eye, your time is up. As such, living frugally just for the sake of frugality is as significant as anything self-described as more important. Maybe that 1 in a billion — Mozart, Einstein and the like — could claim to have had higher callings at a historic human scale. The rest of us peons? Nothing we do “matter”.
I don’t even think cheap is bad! Tongue in cheek, of course.
I am happy to seek out and pay the lowest price — stores still make a profit, but they make less profit off me. More of my income goes to secondhand stores and individuals than most people’s.
Meanwhile, I am able to spend more money investing in my health savings account, my emergency fund, paying my ever-increasing health insurance bill (to go up 28% in December), and planning for judicious expenditures like travel. And I’m often told that I can stretch a dollar farther than many people I know.
Mindfulness is a great term. That’s why my blog is called Cheap Like Me – it’s about being cheap, frugal, whatever you want to call it, but on your own terms. Choosing where you put your time and money rather than throwing it to the winds.
Frugal is only a bad word when you’re punishing yourself or worried what others are thinking — two positions we’re encouraged to take in American society.
I’m enjoying this thread so much, I thought I would contribute.
I’m a student who works part-time and runs a nonprofit in my spare time. That doesn’t leave a lot of time over for other things: I don’t have time to shop, I don’t have time to spend hours at the bar, I don’t have time to be hungover the next day. My life has become so much more satisfying because I fill it up with people and events, and less with things.
I spend a lot of money on some things: organic, local food; hand-dyed, fair-trade yarn (I’m a knitter); good tea. I see my friends spend hours studying at Starbucks, easily wasting 20$ on coffee they could have had at home. For the price of one of their cups of tea, I can have enough loose-leaf tea to last me months!
Being frugal, to me, is about eventually getting to live a life like Emily described above, while enjoying everything I do right now as much as I can. My life is filled up with people and events, and that’s the best thing I can do for myself.
I’ve been thinking about how frugality for me is partly taking everyday items, and making them into occasional treats. I like having more treats in my life. And when these same things were always there, I didn’t enjoy them nearly as much.
Frugality is in the eye of the beholder. My co-workers constantly hound me because they know that we make good money, but I have an older cell phone, drive an older car, buy my toddler’s clothes used, bring my lunch most days, etc. However, they’d probably be appauled at the amount of money I spend golfing (my passion) and on our Sattelite provider bill with NFL Sunday Ticket and Superfan package (my husband and I truly enjoy watching football all day together).
Like others, my husband and I have goals to retire by 50 with no debt or mortgage, pay for our daughter’s college, and travel the world. Packing a sandwich is a small price to pay for all of that don’t you think?!
I am cheap. I admit that. But there’s nothing wrong with being frugal. If you have to buy paper towels, and you know they cost $12 at one grocery store and $10 at another, what are you giving up by buying them for $10? That’s $2 saved effortlessly. Mindful frugality, like keeping a pricebook, isn’t sacrificing anything.
I’m more than happy to cut back on day-to-day expenditures because 3-4 times per year, I can visit my daughter and grandchildren in HI! That’s my bigger goal, so it’s easy for me to not impulse-shop. Also, I’m totally out of debt and enjoying the freedom and peace of mind that comes with that, and I will do everything it takes not to rack up debt again – everything. I derive pleasure in small things and it feels so good to know that payments I was making before w/interest charges to me, are now being sent to my high-earning savings account automatically each month. Love that. Being out of debt, including no mortgage debt is the most amazing feeling and frankly the way we were all meant to live and be.
To say that frugality talk is crap is narrow minded, or is the words of someone already in the upper fringe of the wealth Bell Curve.
My story is similar to others: 10 years working in restaurants, maxed credit cards, then a gradual change to save $20 here or there, drinking water instead of soda for lunch, forcing myself to pay an extra $30 on a credit payment here and there, moving credit balances to lower interest cards and repeating it when the offer expires, paying everything on-time. Once a person can make very small changes like this (get the $6.99 chicken sandwich and not the $13.99 chicken plate – you pay $7 for 15 minutes of taste pleasure that will be forgotten in 4 hours, later cook it yourself for $2.50) then the ball is rolling.
Frugality pays folks! You don’t always have to give things up, you just have to find other ways to experience them.
Another useful perspective is this: That $13.99 chicken plate will take you 30 minutes to make and cost you $2.50 (you save $11.49. Many folks have jobs that do not even pay them $11.49 an hour. Well, instead of paying a cook $16/hr to make your chicken platter, you are are paying yourself about $20hr. Viewing the time that you input to save a few dollars can help you make very good decisions. When you don’t feel like investing that time, tell yourself that by working for that hour or 30 minutes, the net result in your bank account is that you got paid well for your time. So don’t go buy the new pre-cream cheesed bagels for $4.99 a box, spread your own cream cheese and save $3 a week, which is $150 a year. All because you cheesed your own bagels.
I’m a little late to this discussion, but I bet those people who think frugality is “crap” are the same people who now have foreclosures on their mortgages, gas-guzzling SUVs, and credit card debt up the wazoo.
My husband and I make less money than just about anybody we know. We cut all the junk–satellite t.v. (who watches it, anyway?), long-distance phone plans (we have Tracfones for that), and we shop at the cheaper stores. We go out for dinner once a week, so no deprivation there. And we still managed to get a new fuel-efficient car last year, and we’re putting a down payment on a little house this month. I know people who make 3 times what we do who can’t do that. I don’t mean to be smug about this . . . . I just never understood the spend-spend-spend to be happy mentality.
Being frugal (a.k.a. cheap!) saved my life… Here’s how…
You don’t waste money on prestigous luxury items.
That’s the killer right there why So Many Americans end up in debt: they Need to showoff and prove their Worth to others through conspicuous consumption. They are fools and deserve their fate. Money is the life blood under Capitalism and should be treated with respect–first and foremost for Survival. Ignore the commercials which say You Need THIS. Ignore peer pressure. Ignore your pretententious prick neighbors.
You don’t indulge in smoking, drinking, drugs… It’s outright Healthy to be frugal at this level! Cigarettes cost money. Beer costs money. Both are undisputably unhealthy and probably my rejection of them is why I’m so youthful and healthy to this day.
Even the concept of people buying Bottled Water is laughable to me, big-time. In the 21st Century I finally gave up my old-time fluid indulgence: soda!
Regular I had ditched in the 80s (sugar is horrible for your body, starting with your teeth!) and decades later eventually abandoned diet (Aspartame poisoning is worse than sugar!). More money saved! Now I drink tap water and frequently boil tea with it.
The more money you save the less you need, as if it’s properly positioned in banks and so forth, it makes money for you. In time, you become financially independent…
The less you need, the less you want. The more Pointless you see Consumerism/Capitalism to be. The more you learn to get off your ass and do things for yourself.
BUT you will be an outcast and looked down upon by your fellow Americans…
Your rich neighbors will treat you like a bum. Hate you. Fear you.