Since I began writing, about a year ago, “Frugal” has become quite the buzzword which is practically a 180 from when I wrote “When Did Frugality Cease Being a Virtue.” I even read an article in the Wall Street Journal last week that proclaimed Frugality is once again a virtue.
When I began writing, I’m not quite sure if I had the knowledge of frugality that I do now, but after a year of writing and adapting my frugal lifestyle I think I’m finally able to give a good explaination of what frugality is.
First, in order to give a good view on frugality we need to remember that being frugal is not being cheap. A cheap person refrains from purchasing until they absolutely have to, even then they might wait to buy. When they do buy they buy the cheapest thing with no regard for quality. A frugal person may hold off making a purchase, but it’s usually to make sure they get the best deal (not necessarily the cheapest). Case in point: Would you rather spend $400 every two or three years on a piece of furniture from Ikea, or would you rather spend $1,000 on a nice good quality piece that will last you a decade or more?
Now we need to analyze the day to day lifestyle of someone who is frugal vs. someone who is cheap. A cheap person tends to not buy things unless they absolutely have to, a frugal person makes calculated choices about what is important to them. You may frequently see frugal people at starbucks or going out to dinner. Cheap people typically don’t like to put money into maintaining what they have, they will use something until it is broken, and then might keep using it. Frugal people put money into maintnence. We take care of our vehicles by do regularly scheduled maintnence, and we take care of our bodies by staying fit and going to the doctor for checkups. We keep our houses nice and frequently do minor improvement projects so that we don’t have to do major ones later.
Being frugal is about controlling your money and making choices so that you can allow yourself to splurge. It’s about not doing X so that you can do or buy what you love. In fact, you will frequently see people choose to give up Starbucks so they can afford a nicer car, or give up a nicer car so that they can afford a nicer house. We all need to splurge, if you don’t you’re letting your money control you, and you will eventually lose.
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4 Comments at "Control Money or Money Will Control You"
Interesting reading, it really made me think about certain purchases and actions I have personally taken.
I see several spots where looking from this perspective I am cheap, but other times I feel that I made the quality purchase at a good discount and was frugal. I guess it is just hard to not slip into the category of being cheap on accident. I just took my vehicle into the shop to have a couple things fixed and it cost more because I had not taken it in for some checkups and some parts wore out that should not have, those were my costs of being cheap.
Thanks, and I will take a closer look now.
Thanks for the comment Philip. I’d be a liar if I told you I don’t slip into being cheap every once and a while. In fact I just had the same thing happen as you! We drove one of our cars with the check engine light on for over a year. I knew what it was, and that it wasn’t detremental to the performance or engine. I also knew I could fix it myself. Well because I let it go to long I could no longer fix it myself and I had to pay someone else to do it!
Great! Thank you!
I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?
Of course, I will add backlink?
Regards, Timur Alhimenkov
i think it’s important to note what dictates what we spend on, why we want the things we want, but don’t necessarily need to survive.
to me most unnecessary spending is a means of feeling better about yourself of your situation that new thing makes you feel a little happier for a while… then you buy another thing and another.
my point is that this doesn’t get to the root of the problem: you are still unhappy with yourself and your situation. the solution is to begin looking at your life in a different way, seeing what you have instead of what you don’t, and really appreciating yourself for who you are, not what you look like or own, what other people think of you doesn’t matter if you love yourself! everyones perfect just the way they are
we don’t need to rely on others to tell us we are loved if we tell ourselves
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