Earlier this week I posted about the notion of being frugal vs. being a spendthrift vs. being a tightwad or a cheapskate. Many of you posted comments to let us know that, like me, you fall happily into the frugal category, but some of you are still struggling to give up your spendthrift ways. In fact, one reader posted this question in the comment box, which I thought was such a good question that I turned it into today’s blog posting:
Q: I’m trying to work towards frugal, but I’d honestly rather keep being a spendthrift than become a tightwad. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, as I read more and more frugality bloggers–how do you avoid becoming miserly when you focus so much on saving money?
A: I don’t think you have to jump right from spendthrift to tightwad, just as I wouldn’t suggest that you make a major change in your habits all at once. This will surely lead to resentment on your part and, most likely, failure in your attempt to adopt more frugal ways. Instead, I would suggest that you ease yourself into ways you can save money so that over time, you can comfortably go from spendthrift to frugal without feeling too much pain.
Here are some ways you can do that.
* Make an effort to meal plan
I can’t stress enough how important meal planning is to saving money. On its most basic level, when you meal plan and know what you’re having for breakfast, lunch and dinner–and you stock your kitchen accordingly–you will be less tempted to eat out. Once you start cooking at home, you’ll start saving. Sure, your grocery bills will go up–that’s to be expected. But I’ll bet that soon enough, you’ll see your restaurant spending going down.
* Don’t go shopping when you’re bored
We used to call this “shopper-tainment,” and it’s something we got in the habit of doing when we lived in Michigan. You see, in Michigan it’s pretty much winter eight months of the year, and you can cross-country ski and sled only so much. On days when we couldn’t figure out what to do with ourselves, we went to Target or the mall. Bad habit to get into and one we brought with us when we moved back East. If you find yourself driving to the mall or walking around downtown, just because you’ve got nothing better to do, find something else you can fill your time with. This isn’t to say that you can’t ever go shopping for the pleasure of it, but try to limit it to when you actually need something. Or ease yourself out of “shopper-tainment” by going less frequently or consciously buying fewer and fewer things when you go out. Remember, acquiring more “stuff” isn’t very green either. Hopefully, soon enough you’ll have gotten rid of your desire to shop as your hobby.
* See what regular expenses you can get rid of
When we decided to live more frugally, one of the first things we did was go through our regular bills and see what we could do without in order to start saving money. Initially, I got rid of my online subscription to WeightWatchers.com, because I just wasn’t using it anymore. We asked our kids to each give up an online gaming site that we were paying $5 a month for them to use but, frankly, they weren’t using. About six months later, we sat down again and reviewed our bills to see if there was any other fat we could cut from our spending budget. This time around we decided to stop subscribing to HBO (once the Sopranos and The Wire were over), which saved about $20 a month. We did, however, keep our Tivo and Comcast on Demand subscriptions. Another cut we could make was to the second landline in the house, which I used for business purposes. Since I was using my cell phone most of the time, why bother paying for that second line just for the convenience? Cutting that landline added up to $750 in savings a year. And as I mentioned in that earlier post on frugal, spendthrift or tightwad, we saved up to pay off our car, so we could free up $400 a month.
These are three simple things that you can do to become more frugal. Let me know if these make sense and, if you end up adopting any of these changes, how they’re working out for you.
READ LEAH ON HOME GOES STRONG
Another way to look at it, if you’re feeling miserly when you think so much about money, is to remember that while it may feel like you’re watching your money right now to get out of debt etc when you’ve conquered that you can use the skills you’ve learned to be a really generous person!
Planning ahead gives me a cushion I can use to help people when they need it [no, I don't just give money away, but we all have 'those times' and I have a few people I've helped through them from time to time]. You can give to charity too. You can use your mad shopping ahead, using coupons for the food bank as well as your family, clearance deals allow me to give bigger and better gifts than my pocket would normally afford, and I can give things to toys for tots and the ARC drive each year without much effort too.
I can also help the world by thinking more long term about purchases – a small example – I bought a bunch of contaminant free water bottles before school started. It was a hefty start up expense that may or may not save me money in the long run [not everything will make it home regularly
] but it let me make what I felt like was a ‘greener’ choice and not feel the pinch financially.
In many ways since I’ve got my money under control by worrying more about it I am freer with it – because it’s not all committed the second it comes in the door!
Wow, Cherie, that was an incredibly generous post. Thank you for sharing how you’ve made frugal work for you. You seem to be a very giving and thoughtful person. Thanks again.
Leah
One easy thing to do, once you get in the habit, is write down everything you spend, when you spend it. A small notebook, a PDA or even a cellphone works. Just the act of recording will cause you to think twice about spending.
Then using a spreadsheet, or if you like something like Quicken or GNUCash, you can quickly see what you are spending money one.
This was actually the first step we took in the direction of frugality, almost 20 years ago.
Writing down everything you spend, then looking at a monthly summary of it, can show you what areas you are spending more than you thought, or less than you thought. I read somewhere that your spending habits should reflect your priorities in life. For example, if you value fitness, you’ll see money allocated for that in your monthly budget. If you value ‘family time’, you may see money set aside for special meals or outings with family. And so on. It can be a very telling exercise.
I think that may have been my question. Thanks for the response! I am currently focusing on cutting down on “shopper-tainment”, and it’s going pretty well. My partner and I have also done several expense cuts (we canceled HBO after The Wire ended too!). And you’re right–those are things one can do to reduce spending without being miserly in the least.
We have found that living an environmentally friendly lifestyle is also living more frugally. The more we make enviromnental choices the less money we spend. This allows us to make wiser choices with the money we save.
We are giving homemade christmas gifts this year, but taking that money and setting up micro loan programs in 3rd world countries for our children to manage. http://www.kiva.org/
When we buy a car we didn’t pick the biggest, fanciest car with a dvd player. We chose one based on what it’s mileage is and its durability. This year our newest slightly used car saved us $1,000.00 in gas costs compared to our last car.
Because of hundreds of decisions like this we can afford to work part time, own our own passive solar home , are debt free and can retire anytime we chose. Its not about how much you make, its about how much you keep (and how little you hurt the planet).