Why don’t you just enjoy your money?
This is something people ask me when they hear about my frugality. Whenever I hear this, it seems like people have the following misconceptions:
- that I deprive myself from enjoying life,
- that I always choose the cheapest products,
- and that I can’t pay for the things I want.
The thing is, I do enjoy my money. I get to spend my money on hobbies like carpentry, gardening, model airplanes, and art. I also have the money to travel for more than a week at a time, and to splurge on ingredients for culinary experiments here at home.
Still, I consider myself frugal because I try to get a bargain whenever I can, and I shop wisely. I also know that if I had zero income (and had no emergency fund), I can support myself and the 4 people living in my house for under P10,000/month. But obviously this doesn’t mean I’m not having fun.
Frugality is about achieving balance between your enjoyment of the present and the security of your future. It’s about ensuring that you can afford financial emergencies, retirement, and big purchases such as a house or a car. In other words, you have to prioritize.
What I’m actually doing is saving on the things that are less important to me and channeling them to my hobbies, travel expenses, emergency fund, and retirement fund. Here are some ways that I practice my frugality:
- I buy only food items which I know I’m going to use.
- I only dine out when necessary.
- I don’t buy signature clothing.
- I don’t call or text more than I have to. (Also, I don’t buy expensive cellphones.)
In other words, spend less whenever you can and don’t spend on something that isn’t important to you, or something you don’t need. If you’re not a photography buff, why spend P20,000 buying a new camera? If you only have two children and don’t plan on having more, why buy a 5-bedroom house?
Another way to be frugal without destroying your “fun” is to trim extra expenses rather than eliminate them completely.
If you find that your coffee habit is costing you over P1,000 pesos a month, you don’t have to quit cold turkey. You can cut back on one cup a week, then two, until you find the number of cups you can drink which allows you to get a caffeine without overdoing it. In fact, you might want to try brewing your own coffee at home, if you have the time. These things may seem like a sacrifice, but it’s nothing compared to quitting your fun habits completely.
You don’t have to give up the things that you enjoy or that make you happy. After all, your hobbies, favorite food, activities, and trips should be a source of enjoyment and not a source of financial stress.
Of course, I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just demonstrating that yes, it is possible to enjoy your hard-earned money without sacrificing your financial independence and security. It’s up to you to find your own way of doing that.
How do you balance frugality with enjoyment?
Image by Richard Sweet from sxc.hu
Hi.. Your articles are really inspiring. I was honestly a profligate spender until my recent realization that I am not getting any younger.
Lately I am learning to be frugal and like the way you explained it in your post, my expenditures must be practical and not out of whims.
So keep writing and inspiring others!
I think some people view it that way. The key here is to identify how much we would allot for our personal enjoyment. I read in an article that said that we should allot a percentage to our fun/miscellaneous money once we achieve financial independence. Doing that, we won’t go on binge spending.
@Cyramiles: Thank you for your kind words
Also, congratulations on learning to be more frugal!
@Kaye: I agree that we should always include “fun money” in our budget once we’ve reached financial independence. In my experience, depriving myself of the fun stuff has cause more spending than I was trying to prevent.
I try to be frugal and one of the things, I really focus on is avoiding to waste food and resources. I buy food that we eat even if I pay a little bit more but I avoid those that get wasted because nobody would even touch them.
hi there!
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