What does it mean to live a Frugal Life? I think there is an inherent positivity in choosing a Frugal Life, even if that decision is not based on money.
I live a frugal life. I talk about living frugally and how to save money because that is my life. That is how I live. Living a frugal life is more of a mindset than having to do with money. You can live a frugal life even if you have all the money in the world. Of course, there is a world of difference between choosing to live frugally and being forced to live frugally because of your circumstances.
To be living a frugal life and enjoying it means you need to have the proper mindset in place. Living a frugal lifestyle is about more than cutting corners or making your own vegetable stock. To live a frugal lifestyle is to have a frugal mindset.
What does it mean to live a Frugal Life? I think there is a an inherent positivity in choosing a Frugal Life, even if that decision is not based on money. Click To TweetLiving frugally does not mean that you have to deprive yourself of every joy in the world, I think everyone is sick of all the articles and memes telling us to stop spending money and coffee. We get it. Coffee isn’t frugal. Starbucks is the devil blah blah. That’s not the point of frugality. Frugality also doesn’t mean never spending money or always buying the cheapest thing.
The Frugal Life isn’t The Cheap Life
I have an uncle who always buys the cheapest things. They can afford to spend more but he doesn’t want to. An appliance breaks- he goes to the store and buys the cheapest one. Unsurprisingly, they go through many, many appliances. Their appliances are always breaking. In fact, they have bought more microwaves in the past 2 years then I have bought in my adult life. (I only ever bought one).
That is not particularly frugal. Frugality would mean choosing the best option even if it means spending more money. Besides for probably saving money in the long run, the aggravation of constantly having broken appliances does not lead to a peaceful life.
Being frugal doesn’t mean picking the cheapest option always. It means choosing the frugal option always.
What does that mean?
Living a Mindfully Frugal Life
Living a frugal life and enjoying it means allowing yourself to spend money on what matters to you and you alone.
Living a frugal life means being mindful of where your money is going. It is choosing to spend your money in places where it matters and not spending your money in places where it doesn’t matter. Now, most people who live a frugal life tend to agree about what matters to them and what doesn’t. Designer handbags and fancy clothes are usually categorized under the “doesn’t matter” category.
However! The thing is that if that doesn’t apply to you and these things DO MATTER to you than that doesn’t mean you can’t practice frugality. You don’t need to be frugal in everything- just in the things that matter.
For the things that matter- buy them. Try to get the best possible deal on them- but buy them (if you can afford them, of course), even if it means you have to pay full price.
On the things that don’t matter- well, this is where it gets fun.
That is where you start stripping down and you start saving money.
Choosing what matters
Living a frugal life means making do for what doesn’t matter. It means not filling your life with things that don’t matter. It means stripping down to the things that matter. It means not devoting time and money to things that don’t matter.
Frugal living means choosing where to spend your money, time, and energy.
There is an inherent value in doing with less regardless of the amount of money you have. Even if you have a lot there is a value in doing with less, in eschewing materialism, in reducing your waste as much as possible, in leaving the smallest physical footprint in this world as possible.
There is something good about living a frugal life. Frugal living can be rewarding in many ways.
There is something about living your life trying to do with less. Living a life that is about trying to have less materialism in your life.
2020 stripped away a lot of what we consider to be essential. We just had months of doing with less and dealing without things that we usually have. We were forced into a frugal life not because of money or because of any frugal ideals but because we had too. And maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world?
I wonder if maybe this year could be the year of embracing the frugal life. Of embracing the simple life. Of embracing the life of less. Of encouraging ourselves to have less, to buy less, to consume less. I wonder what that would look like.
Would we miss the old ways? Would we miss the things we have always had or always bought “just because”? Or would be ok without them? Would we be able to realize with new clarity what things we really want and really miss and acknowledge that some things are just trappings?
Would we realize that some things are materialistic that we truly enjoy but that not everything materialistic do we enjoy? Can we pick and choose the things that we want and leave the rest on the ways did?
As illustrated in my story about my uncle above, living a frugal life doesn’t mean the cheapest life. It doesn’t mean constantly making decisions based on money alone. It means making choices that are the best value for us- the best value monetarily and the best value emotionally.
Why am I now writing about this?
Before, a few months ago, we were all forced into lives stripped away from things. Now, things are different. Now we have more choices. We can get the things we want. We can go to the places we want to go. We can go shopping, we can go eat out whenever we want. We can go get what we want- even if the government has deemed it frivolous or non-essential. Now we get to decide what is essential.
Now is the time when the choice is up to us. We get to decide the life we want to live and the life, we want to create for ourselves. We get to choose how we want our lives to look. When you have a roadmap for your life, when you choose the type of life you want to lead based on what you think is important- not based on what other people think- then you can truly decide what is important for you and what is not.
These months in isolation made me realize how many of my decisions and what I deem important are based on what other people think is important and what other people value. We truly are very shaped by what other people think and what other people value,
The question is: what do you value? What do you deem important?
Make that the priority of your life. Make that the priority of your money, and then you will be truly living a frugal life.
Choosing Goals
You don’t have to live a frugal life for the sake of frugal living. Some people don’t want to live a frugal life for the sake of frugal living and that is okay. However, frugal living can be a means to an end. It can help you get to a goal that you have.
If your goal in life is to reach financial freedom and not just live a frugal life, then you need to get international about spending less money and making sure you don’t have credit card debt. Using credit cards to fund a lifestyle will not get you to the financial place that you want.
If frugal living means being able to reach that goal sooner rather than later then you should do so. You can use your frugal life and make extra money to get to your goal even quicker.
What does frugal living mean to you? Let me know in the comments!
If you are ready to start living frugally check out these 30 Best Ways to Start Frugal Living!
You’re right – being cheap doesn’t equate to being frugal. Being cheap is being cheap. Like you, I support a frugal mindset, which entails paying for quality, i.e., not continually replacing your microwave (that’s bad for both your wallet and the environment!). 2020 has indeed been an interesting year. People who never gave much thought to saving before suddenly found themselves forced to save and live a different way of life whether or not they wanted to. Unfortunately, some of the people I know who needed to learn those lessons the most are the ones who turned right back around and resumed their normal levels of consumption as soon as they could. For people like us, this year reinforced what we already knew, that it’s okay to live a simple life and not spend, spend, spend. There’s joy in this life too, probably more so than in a life dedicated to consumption.
Excellent post! This is what it means to live intentionally—kbow what matters to you and indulge in that, set goals towards obtaining it. We are living more frugally by not buying a house and staying in our condo. It’s going to allow us to save money and spend money on things that are more meaningful to us. Way more important to us than a larger living space.
I always enjoy your money saving tips because I am all about trying to live wisely too. We eat dinner at the dining room table every night also so it’s a treat when we get a movie and eat our meal on our laps!
Hope you’re having a good Saturday.
Thanks! You too!