Many people, when they think about frugality think of an austere, miserable existence. They perhaps envision huddling beneath a blanket in a cold room, eating an unheated can of beans. To me, this is not what frugality means at all. To me, frugality means........FREEDOM!
There are many ways in which frugality can mean freedom, but the way I think of it most is in time. Basically, when you work a job, you are selling your time for a fixed rate. Many people don't think of their jobs in this way, but in actuality, that is exactly what people do. Some people sell their hours for $10.00 an hour....some sell their hours for $26.00 and some sell them for $76.00. But no matter what you do for a living, you are selling your time for a fixed rate. Let’s say you need a new refrigerator and it costs $1000.00. Let’s say you make $15/hr. You may believe that that would take you 67 hours of your life; about a week and half working at your job to make that money. After that, if you are paying 16% interest over 5 years and you make $24 monthly payments you may think $24 a month isn’t bad! However, when you figure out what you will pay at the end of that 5 years, you will have paid a total of $1488.00. So, instead of it taking you 67 hours of your life to pay back this loan, not to mention just having a loan on your neck for 5 years, it will take you 99 hours of your life so…..that’s 2 and a half weeks of your life and that isn’t even taking out the income taxes you pay before you get your paycheck. It might be hard to do this at first because sometimes it takes time to turn things around a bit but if you buy a used refrigerator for $400 and you pay cash, that’s only 27 hours of your life to buy that refrigerator. You have to figure out if buying new or used is better for you but in the end, buying with cash is always better.
When you think of your life as hours selling time in order to pay for things you want or need, and turn these thoughts around, you can see that any time you save money on something, those are hours of your life you do not need to sell in order to get what you want. You can use that extra $488 dollars for anything you want. Paying down other debt with that $488 dollars is a great idea and gets you closer to financial freedom.
Once you get your head wrapped around this idea, you may find yourself wanting less. Wanting less is one way to having more freedom to do what you want. Another way is finding ways to save money or make money. If you make $10.00 an hour in your day job and you save $30.00 clipping coupons and the time it took clipping coupons was 1/2 hour, you save $25.00 or 2.5 hours of your time that you would have had to otherwise spend on your job making money for the same things.
I read a book recently that said "We can't retire, we went out to eat instead". The same concept applies with frugality and freedom. The more money you save, the less you have to work and the less you feel stressed about the money you don't have. This means freedom to perhaps work a part-time job instead of a full-time one. It could mean staying home with your kids. It could mean the freedom to start your own business. It could mean the freedom to retire early.
Frugality truly is freedom. It means options. It means empowerment and taking your life into your own hands rather than feeling like you have to do things a certain way. It all adds up and when it adds up, it means you have the power to do what you want more than you thought. Change your Think into a Thunk and Change your Life!!
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