Frugal living is this idea that you have to go through life sacrificing everything that you want just so you can retire early. Then once you’ve retired you have to continue this low standard of living constantly worrying if the money you have will run out. Right??? NO!
It’s not a sacrifice to change your life habits in order to reach your life goals. It is a re-orientation of your life spending with an emphasis on delayed gratification. I repeat. It is a re-orientation of your life spending with an emphasis on delayed gratification.
As a millennial I can assure you that delaying instant gratification for future success is difficult. However, succumbing to the instant gratification lasts only for short time. By retraining your habits to exclude those impulses you will be able to attain your life goals at a much earlier time in your life and will relish in your decisions as long as you live.
My personal example of this is a simple one. In early 2012 my wife and I made the decision that every dollar we were able to not spend was going towards paying down our debt. If we made the minimum payments it was going to take us 25 years to pay off our student debt and 30 years to pay off our mortgage. In (June 2014) I signed into my online account for my student loans and saw that the total left to pay off was zero! My wife and I had successfully paid off over $50,000 in student debt in just under two years! Check out My Money Snowball for a closer look.
At the time I thought the feeling of joy and relief that I no longer had this burden would wear off over time. It is now 2019 and I every time I hear an ad for student loan reconsolidation that feeling of relief still strongly lives in me.
The articles in this section will give you some life hacks which will allow you to live an entry level middle class without the mental stress of thinking you are sacrificing your “fun”. Some people are naturally ingrained to be a frugal person. I, honestly, am not one of those people. My wife is not the spender in our family, it is me; and it took me 6 years to realize that.
Having the ability to pay off debt and watch our bank accounts grow has become a joyful part in my life and frugality has become JOYFUL. I can only imagine what it will feel like once all of my debt has been paid off and I have reached financial independence. Check out the MyFITracker section for a look into where I am on my path to FI and some worksheets for you to determine where you stand on your path.
The articles in this section will cover two aspects of living frugal: mental and physical. I have heard many podcasts and read many blogs of people taking frugality and minimalism to an extreme and guess what? It was emotionally damaging and created hardships for themselves and their family! I will steer clear of the extreme frugality and minimalism and give you simple actionable tips which will help you in your path to financial independence.
CAUTION!! As you read these articles don’t feel overwhelmed and feel like you need to change your lifestyle tomorrow. Try to implement just one of these ideas per week and before you realize it you will be living the ideal frugal lifestyle which will speed up your path to fi. Check these articles out and leave me feedback on anything you would like me to research or things that you have done which has accelerated your path to FI!
- Saving Money 72 Hours at a Time
- Eating a hole in your pocket
- Frugal Vs Minimalism Vs Valuist
- Firewood, Healthy and Frugal
- Shopping for Fun
- The Cost of Christmas
- Keeping up with the Joneses
- The Amazing World of Libraries
- Hiking/Playgrounds
- Instapot Your Path to FI
- Skinny Waist = Fat Wallet
Everybody creates their own unique path to financial independence. When you are reading this blog and other financial websites remember that even if you don’t follow every suggestion provided you will still be leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else stuck on the hamster wheel called life. By making the decision to change the way you live your day to day life you will be attaining the financial freedom that some people take the entire lifetime to obtain. Remember: it’s not what you’re giving up it’s what you’re gaining!
Take away points:
- Frugal living is a lifestyle that once constructed is the #1 most effective way to accelerate your financial independence
- Your path to FI is your own. Don’t try to copy what someone else is doing. What works for someone else may not work for you
- Living frugal doesn’t mean you are giving up on everything that is fun now, it means that by creating good habits will pay off in the future in the form of time and money
- Impulse Buying
- Grocery Bill
- Vehicle’s
- Entertainment
- Keeping up with the Joneses
