What Does Frugal Living Mean To You?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately – what does frugal living mean to me? If you were to ask me about how I view frugality, here’s what I regularly tell people – “I would happily buy a $90 ticket to see Wicked, but I won’t pay $2 to buy a toothbrush.” That is the truth! Provided I had the $90, I would rather buy one ticket to Wicked than 45 toothbrushes. Why? Because I know that I can get a toothbrush for less. In fact, I know that I can get toothbrushes for free! Why would I pay $2?

And that is the point. You need to figure out what being frugal means for you. My hope is that it doesn’t mean squeezing the joy out of living because you don’t want to spend any money. Remember, couponing is a game. It’s a long term adjustment that will keep the costs down and the stockpile at a level where you don’t have to pay full price for your groceries. Hopefully that will allow you to re-purpose the money you saved into other areas.

Whether your family makes $10,000 per year or $100,000 per year, you shouldn’t be spending money on things that you don’t need to be spending money on! And when you start saving the money that would otherwise go towards your toothbrushes, you find that you can suddenly afford items or movies or trips that you otherwise could not have had. That is what frugal means to me. What’s your definition?