Sunday 30 October 2011

How frugal is frugal


I came across this web site a few minutes ago and have bookmarked it for future reading.


It got me thinking. Just one of the many definitions of frugal is “practising economy; living without waste; being thrifty” and that would describe us. Others live a less frugal life than us and some, as this site feels, live too frugal a life.

As explained in my War Diary - 1994 was a time in our life when we (2 adults and 1 child) had to live on £5 a week above the government's description of the 'poverty' line for many years. Things were not so desperate that we had to lose our home and end up on the streets. It was changing over to this war time economy (and more or less staying on it ever since) that enabled us to continue to live in our home, pay our bills and still manage to feed ourselves.

Today, although we are no longer in that 'dire' situation, both of us are retired (me early with no pension until I am 66 – gulp) therefore we continue to live a frugal but not austere life simply due to trying to live on the fixed pension of my husband.

My mother in law when she was alive, and many of her generation would always quote “look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves. We are not too proud to pick up coins off the pavement (once found a £5 note in raised bed container in the town). It was in a sorry state so had been there quite a while therefore my feeling of guilt was short!

We grow what we can in our garden, we barter, make gifts for presents, buy our Christmas cards and wrapping paper etc in the January sales and so on. It keeps our life stable from a monetary point of view but the sheer pleasure it brings us living in this way is beyond money. By living this 'good life' we save a little for unexpected problems such as having to buy a new washing machine.

Finding blogs from like-minded people who live their lives in a similar way is exciting, benefits each of us but leaves us all free to live our lives as frugally as we wish.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the link- it made very interesting reading , particularly regarding those who wear their frugality as a hair shirt to atone for past spending, and about it being a competition. I've certainly stumbled across blogs like that.

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