Five Reasons People Are Afraid of Frugality and Why the Stigma Is Wrong
When Sarah and I first moved into our new home in 2007, the first electricity bill came as a shock to us. It was much better than what we are used to since our tiny apartment. Our old electricity bill was about $ 80 a month – that was over $ 300!
I was on a mission right then to get that bill down. I have added sealant to the windows. I installed a programmable thermostat and set it to turn off heating and cooling during the day when most of us were not at home. Over time, I replaced all the bulbs in the house with LED ones . The actual list of what I was doing went on and on.
A few years later, I bill my electricity bill during the height of the winter heating season in Iowa, and lo and behold, the bill is about $ 125, which is roughly the same as our average monthly amount these days.
From the records I have, our average annual electricity bill has dropped by about 50% since our first year at home. We’ve done many, many little things over the years to save energy, and these efforts have resulted in a total savings of about $ 100 per month.
In my opinion, that $ 100 a month saved by our lean nature is no different than the extra $ 100 a month after taxes on our takeaway paycheck. It helps to make ends meet here, as I am sure it does in your own family. Who couldn’t use another $ 100 a month in their checking account?
This is frugality. We looked at our lives, made some changes to cut our spending on things that were relatively unimportant to us (like paying for warm or cold air that then leaves our home), and reaped the benefits of those changes.
The point is, when people look at their lives and think about frugality, they usually do n’t see it. Instead, they see radical, painful, unwanted changes that do not bring much savings at all. They see endless efforts thrown into a bottomless pit that simply saves them pennies. Who wants to mess with this?
However, these fears are completely misplaced. Here are five fears that many people have when they hear the word “frugality” that makes them ditch the powerful tool of personal finance right away.
Fear # 1: I’ll have to give up all of this that I love
I like to think of myself as a humble person. However, at the same time, I have several hobbies that deeply excite me, and I still spend money on these hobbies – perhaps too much. If being lean meant giving up the things I deeply cared about completely, I wouldn’t want to be lean either.
If you give up things that you really care about, then you are not frugal. You are cheap.
Thrift is all about getting the most out of your dollar. This is not about self-restraint, at least not about what is truly valuable in your life.
It ‘s about eliminating things that don’t really matter to you. It is about finding less expensive ways to have things that are important to you.
I think a lot of people get the impression of being frugal because of the examples of frugality they hear about. They hear someone cutting a particular thing, say, a morning latte, and immediately start feeling uncomfortable because this is what they are cutting – this is what they really appreciate. This is a really joyous part of their day, and it seems unbearable to cut it.
The point is, don’t cut out the things that really bring you joy. You should, however, always ask yourself what things actually bring you joy.
Another reason people tend to be afraid of frugality is that when you start talking about cutting things down, people immediately think about the things they care about. The things you care about the most come to mind, and cutting those things seems like a terribly pathetic undertaking. When thinking about frugality, people usually don’t think about things like setting a thermostat or ventilating car tires. They think about the things in their life that bring them joy, and how the joy would go away if they had to cut them down.
Again, if something brings you true joy, you shouldn’t cut it.
Fear # 2: It’s a lot of extra work.
Many are under the impression that frugality is about hand washing Ziploc bags or spending hours cutting newspaper coupons. They are right – this tactic is quite time consuming. This is also a tactic that I don’t use most of the time.
The best lean tactics are those that don’t add extra work to your life, and surprisingly, there are thousands of them.
For example, I often do the thing that prepares food for my family and freezes them. Let’s say we are making chili in a slow cooker. Instead of just making one pot, we’ll buy four times that, which will allow us to buy some ingredients in bulk, save money, and make three additional batches, with additional batches placed in freeze containers. They go to the freezer, and then later, when we need a quick bite, we can simply take that container out of the freezer, put the contents in the multicooker, turn it on low and make the simplest possible homemade meal. may be. This may take a few minutes of extra effort when shopping for food and a few more minutes when assembling containers, but you get that time and more every time you take frozen food out of the freezer.
I can go on and on with examples like this. The next time you replace a light bulb, replace it with a durable, energy efficient one. When you go to the grocery store, make a quick meal plan and make a list first so you don’t waste time (and money) wandering down the aisles and buying unnecessary items just because you didn’t plan to. Attach the weatherstrip to the bottom of the door where there is a draft that takes fifteen minutes once and cuts down on your electricity bills the rest of the time you live there.
Yes, there are thrift tactics that eat up time like there’s no tomorrow, but to be honest, this is usually not a very good thrift tactic. The best ones are simply replacements for what you already do, or one-off projects that later save money by cutting your bills.
Fear # 3: You won’t save a lot of money anyway.
I like to make powdered laundry soap out of a cup of borax, a cup of washing soda, and a grated bar of soap. I just grab a grater, rub a bar of soap while watching TV, and mix the soap powder with brown and baking soda (you can even buy soap flakes if you don’t mind spending a little more). It takes about five minutes to rub the soap, and about a minute to mix the powders, stick the spoon in the jar and put it in the laundry. This mixture ultimately saves about $ 0.20 per load, and this can is enough for about 50 loads or so.
Many people would be fixated on the $ 0.20 figure. Twenty cents? Should not be doing that! I’ll just buy a Tide pitcher.
The point is, you repeat that $ 0.20 over and over again with no extra effort. You repeat this fifty times and it’s 10 dollars. Notice I paid $ 10 – postage tax – in maybe six minutes of effort, five of which I can do while watching TV. If I buy soap flakes, the savings will probably drop to $ 6 or $ 7, but then the effort is reduced to a minute – mix the powders, stick the spoon in the jar and put it in the laundry.
If you gave me $ 6 for spending a minute on something in the kitchen, I would do it all the time .
Some thrift tactics won’t save you a lot of money – it’s true. However, many tactics can save you a lot of money, especially on the job being done. This is especially true for things that repeat over time, such as energy improvements, the benefits of which are essentially repeated every month when you receive an electricity bill or a batch of household soap that has been used fifty times.
Fear # 4: I don’t want to live like an eccentric!
When people hear “frugality,” they often fall back on visions of extreme frugality in the form of things you see on reality TV. A great example is the TV show Extreme Cheapskates , which features people taking frugality to the extreme. Again, what these people are doing is not really frugality. They are cheap and they are different things.
Thrift is about maximizing the value of your dollar. This does not mean that you are just buying the cheapest item. This does not mean that you turn your friends and guests away with your super-cheapness. This does not mean that you are giving up basic courtesy to others, basic sanitation, or health.
If you find the behavior “weird” or socially uncomfortable, you shouldn’t. It’s always helpful to think about yourself and ask yourself why you think this is weird, but that’s a completely different topic. You don’t have to do something self-destructive or destructive to society in order to save money. It is not mean and harmful.
Fear # 5: Awful store brand, period
Many people assume that a default brand name item will be better than a store-branded item. They look at two items, see one they recognize (due to a lot of marketing efforts), and assume it must be good because they’ve never heard of the store’s brand. This often leads to the realization that the store’s brand name must not be very good at all.
It is not true. Quite often, the brand name of the store is the same as the brand name of the version of the product. In other cases, the store’s trademark is functionally identical to the named product brand. You will notice a difference from time to time, but this is not so often. Today, for example, my children ate a plate of Golden Grahams for breakfast at the store – they can have breakfast of their choice on Fridays and they usually ask us to buy specific cereals at the store. This store’s cereal has the same ingredient list as Golden Grahams, out of at least the first dozen or so ingredients, and I honestly can’t tell any difference. The flakes taste like sweetened wholemeal crackers, just like the brand name.
But there is one difference. The branded store box is actually larger than the Golden Grahams box, and the branded packaging is also $ 1.50 cheaper. Try brands in stores. Shake them all. You will find that the vast majority are truly perfect for your needs.
The biggest fear is simply the fear of change
Most of the immediate fears of frugality are stupid. They are based on reality TV, brand marketing, and the fear of losing the most important, not the least.
But why do we have these concerns? This is because, as humans, we are creatures of habit. We are afraid of change. We tend to reinforce reasons so as not to change our habits and to minimize the reasons for changing our habits.
Don’t let this fear rule you. Start making changes, step by step. Stick with the smart ones, the ones that will clearly bring more benefits than disadvantages, and you will soon really begin to feel the benefits of lean as more and more breathing space in your monthly budget.
Good luck!
Five Reasons People Are Afraid of Saving – And Why These Reasons Are Wrong | Simple dollar