For some people, frugality comes naturally.
I.
Am.
Not.
Some.
People.
But I have adopted a fairly frugal lifestyle for the past few years, and I like it. I really do. We are much more intentional with our spending. The constant influx of of stuff has stopped. I wreak far less havoc on the environment. Life just feels simpler.
In short, we are not a scary statistic about money and materialism anymore.
But what always still amazes me is that despite knowing that there are countless benefits to adopting a more frugal lifestyle, there are still a handful of things that surprise me about frugality.
And they’re not all good surprises either.
It still offends me. Sometimes.
A while back, my best friend looked me square in the eye at Target and said, “Well, you’ve always been a little bit fruuugal.”
I nearly dropped my bag.
She has known me longer than most of my closest friends. She has been there with me through it all. From outlets to full-price stores. She has literally watched me burn thousands of dollars on bags, clothes, and shoes. And here she was, ribbing me for not tossing the entire clearance rack into my cart.
And here I was offended by it.
The frugal truth is that I do still prickle at being called frugal but only when people use it as a pejorative. I’m proud that I’m resourceful. I love the fact that I think to use Ibotta, shop sales, and beat our grocery bill down to less than $250 a month. But when people conflate frugality with being a “cheap ass” (Hi, Dad! I heard that!), it still bugs me. Because seriously? There’s a difference. Just look at the used towel debacle if you don’t believe me.
It’s not my default setting.
You would think that a literal award-winning frugal-ite would default to frugality. You would be wrong.
My instinct is still to shop and to spend. While I’ve largely broken the habit of shopping for myself, I am constantly emptying baby clothes and toys and yogurt melts out of my virtual shopping carts.
RELATED POST: Everything I Tried to Buy My Son in the Past 24 Hours
It’s also part of why we still budget and track our money so closely. And why I don’t carry any cash or change on me except my Aldi quarter.
It just vanishes.
I miss the compliments.
I still shop. I still spend money. But I just do it a lot less. A lot, lot, lot, lot, lot less.
Let’s go down Memory Lane, shall we? There was a point in my life where I couldn’t re-wear the same outfit ever. This was pre-social media but post Clueless. I’ll break this down further. I used to be able to go through an entire school year and not repeat outfits. Ever.
In case you’re looking for an exact number, I believe that is the actual Merriam-Webster definition of a shit ton of clothes.
When you play with trends and fads and style, the compliments and conversations come easy. I genuinely enjoyed chatting with friends and coworkers about fashion. Is it superficial? Of course. Do I still hear compliments? Of course. And I’m still fashionable, thankyouverymuch.
This isn’t an actual sacrifice. I’m not suffering. But I miss the chitchat and the easy conversation. (But no, I’m still not RSVP-ing yes to your Cabi party because I don’t need a $70 blouse that looks like something from the LOFT that would cost half that at full price. I don’t miss the compliments that much.)
It makes such a difference.
It’s not a panacea. It’s not the thing that has single-handedly saved our finances. But frugality and extra income is a powerful combination.
Without frugality, I can say with absolute certainty that we would have just spent every raise. And we wouldn’t have even noticed.
RELATED POST: How Frugality Doesn’t Paint the Whole Picture
But embracing a frugal lifestyle has done so much good for our finances, and it’s easy to lose sight of that. It’s easy to want to lose sight of that.
Because it would be comfortable to return to my default setting of mindless spending and impulse buys.
Because it’s often dismissed by our broader society as something negative or even awkward.
Because it’s often dismissed by the personal finance community as something uncomfortable or even inconsequential.
Because it doesn’t come natural to me, and it’s still not always easy. But I’m so glad we’re figuring it out and making room for it in our lives and in our habits.
So Tell Me…Have you ever changed a habit or a lifestyle and been surprised by any unpleasant truths?
I take being called frugal as a compliment at this point. I draw the line at cheap, though. People use those words interchangeably sometimes, but they are very different. And if they understand the difference and still call me cheap, well then I’m definitely offended!
Haha! That’s a great way to look at it, Dave!
Frugality has so many positive benefits, but I also struggle with the reined in experiential spending. In the past, if I wanted to do something fun that cost a bit of money, I’d do it (like wine festivals, amusement parks, skiing, dinner out, happy hours, and vacations) without budgeting first. This, obviously, contributed to debt. A lot of it. The hardest is when one of the kids or the husband expresses interest in spending on an experience I would have said “yes” without thinking in the past. It’s hard to find the happy medium of choosing carefully what and how to spend.
Oh my word, this! Reining in experiential spending is so hard for me. I don’t want to be seen as a party pooper or feel like I’m missing out (serious case of FOMO going all the time). I also don’t like to be called frugal. Which is silly. Because it’s such a great thing to be. But man it is very hard to maintain, month in and month out.
Lol, I love this. I’m on the other side of the spectrum though regarding clothes. I feel that now that I have significantly fewer pieces that I love, fit well and fell very “me” I get more compliments.
The awkward part is when a new friend invites me clothes shopping and I’m like: Thanks, but I don’t do that…
Hi Penny – I think nowadays I am in the past caring what others think camp! I am happy and proud to be called frugal….I look at it as an efficient balancing of my values and spending.
But then it’s interesting how I have slowly moved away from all the spendier people…
I used to get upset when college friends would judge me for being frugal (not eating out much, not buying many new clothes, etc.). Unlike my friends I hadn’t taken out student loans and didn’t have extra cash to spend.
A decade down the road I am thankful I made the decisions I did. I am not saddled with student debt because I didn’t take out loans for anything that wasn’t absolutely essential.
I’ve also learned that it is ok to be frugal. Compared to a used car, a new car will not make me a better person or my life significantly better. I want to teach my children the importance of spending only on what you need. Another lesson I’m focusing on is how to tell when something is only a want, not a need.
I agree with all of this, and it’s definitely what I’m striving toward. It took me a long time to realize why my mom was all about shopping and *things*. Growing up poor, she didn’t have anything. And when she finally started to fight her way out, *things* were that marker of success. So that rubbed off on me, but in a totally unnecessary way. It’s funny how it took so long for that to click, though!
Growing up I was always surrounded with a television. Every room in our home had a TV and cable so I always knew what was going on in the world and watched the latest episode of popular TV sitcoms. It felt like I needed to do that just to catch up with friends to be involved in those conversations and understand the inside jokes of those shows.
When I got married and moved in with my wife, we only had one TV and no cable which was a big adjustment for me. But as I got adapted to it and found other means of entertainment(reading books and youtube) I figured that their really isn’t a need to watch TV a lot. In fact, I barely watch any nowadays. Kind of wished that I cut down on my TV watching growing up because most of it waste of time and could have done other stuff more meaningful to me.