28 November 2018

Frugality

Financially, Shirley and I are quite comfortable. We are not rich by western standards but we have savings and we don't owe anybody anything. We have two cars and occasional holidays and we never blink about grocery or utility bills. Our house is paid for and we get rent from our other house - the one that we helped Ian to buy some years ago and later had to take over ourselves.

In spite of this, my default position is frugality. I  don't like to squander money but I do like a bargain. Most of our grocery shopping is done at "Lidl" - our local discount supermarket and when I need petrol for either of our cars I go to the cheapest forecourt in town.

Some of my clothes are pretty old. I have three shirts which I still wear regularly that my mother bought for me in the nineteen nineties and I have a "Kent State" sweatshirt that was a souvenir of my camp counselling summers in Ohio in the 1970's. I don't really care about clothes or fashion as long as my garb is clean and not falling apart.

I guess that I have inherited my frugal nature from previous generations. My mother grew up in a coal mining community between the wars. Her family had very little and in her early childhood life was a grinding struggle to pay the rent and put food on the table. Like many, she bathed once a week in a tin bath in the kitchen.

At the end of the second world war she became a village schoolmaster's wife but she remained money conscious and thrifty to the end of her life. All of her spending was recorded in little notebooks. At Christmastime she set targets for the purchase of Christmas presents for her four sons. It was important that she spent exactly the same on each of us.I still have those notebooks now. It is hard to throw them away.

When I was nine years old, I was desperate for a bicycle. I begged and pleaded and when Christmas Day came the bicycle duly arrived. It was a Hercules but it was second hand and around twenty years old. A handyman in the village had repaired and cleaned it. My heart sank a little but I loved that bike and it didn't bother me overmuch that my mates from the council estate had been given shiny new bikes. Looking back I can see that receiving that secondhand Hercules had much to do with my mother's thriftiness.

My grandmother, Nana Morris, was poor all of her life but she made excellent soup using bones she collected free of charge from the local butcher. Her lavatory was an outside one that you found at the bottom of treacherous stone steps that led to her backyard. Wiping one's nether regions required the use of newspaper squares that had been threaded on to a piece of washing line.

Consequently, it's probably no surprise that I am frugal by nature. We hardly ever throw any food away and vegetable peelings are all composted. Electrical items are never replaced without good reason. First they have to break down and then resist repair. However, being frugal is not the same as being mean. It's just about avoiding waste and unnecessary expense. I contend that if more of us were thrifty the world would almost incidentally reap great environmental benefits.

35 comments:

  1. I too am very frugal. My daughter rolls her eyes and says "only at my mother's would you see a plastic bag washed out and pegged on the line"
    It's not just about wasting money. For me its about using all our resources to the full. I care about the future of the planet for coming generations.
    I was brought up to believe that things should be used up and worn out before replacing.
    There is so much waste today. We live in a throwaway society.

    On the upside, charity shops benefit from people having so much.

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    1. I have never washed out and dried plastic bags but I am going to do it from now on!

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  2. Anonymous12:09 pm

    I think frugality is common sense, builds character , thank you for sharing your frugal family influences,

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    1. That is a very frugal comment Laurie!

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  3. I just can't break habits of a lifetime and will always look for that bargain. And yes, I rinse out plastic bags and re-use them but only to save the planet!

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  4. In the US, it's the New England section of the country (upper northeast: Maine, Massachusettes, New Hampshire, Vermont) that is known for being Yankee frugal. They have a saying:
    Use it up
    Wear it out
    Make it do
    Or do without

    The interesting thing for me about frugality is: what, then, is your extravagance? I also re-use plastic bags. I even re-use paper towels (you can dry them out and they are almost as good as new). But I splurge on vanilla syrup for my cups of tea.

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    1. Extravagance? Not really Vivian. By the way I like that verse!

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  5. My parents weren't wasteful but I didn't get my frugality from them. At one point in my life I saw I wasn't going to have all those things one is "supposed" to have. I mourned over that with a walk and a cry and finally realized I didn't really want all that anyway. From then on I explored how to have more for less. I discovered thrift shops, I have always been good in the kitchen about not wasting and finding better bargains. It became exciting to me. Why pay more when you can have it for less! I don't think I could go back to being wasteful - we live in an area with great recycle habits - it makes me feel good that we all are helping the whole planet that way. Of course it helps that I live in a society where i could live comfortably off the castaways of others plus the one dollar net bags of less-than-perfect produce at the market. And I think I might be happier than those that wildly consume!

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    1. Doing things that help the planet can certainly help us to feel more contented. Waste is not good for the soul.

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  6. Yes, I am frugal/thrifty/cheap (pick one) too. But I came by it honestly if one plays to stereotypes -- my mother was Jewish and my dad (not bio, but raised me) was Scottish. How could anyone NOT turn out to be thrifty? I err sometimes on the side of being "penny wise and pound foolish" and splurge on gifts for others or tips at restaurants. We shop at the big supermarkets but also at Aldi. Lidi hasn't come here yet but it's on its way, so I hear. We clip coupons for groceries and also fast-food places (Arby's, Burger King, McDonald's) and it always feels good to be getting "more bang for the buck" and no, I have not suddenly changed subjects.

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    1. Some people would call you an old skinflint, likening you to Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol" but I am not one of them.

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  7. Replies
    1. ...says the lady who just bought a space age fridge!

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    2. I knew you were going to bring this up.

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  8. I could not agree more. I'm pretty much the same.

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    1. You have shown this plenty of times through your blog Steve.

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  9. You are describing me. Maybe you're my long-lost twin!

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    1. Could be but my mother never admitted to giving away a baby girl.

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  10. Given the number of your followers who also have your trait the world must, statistically at least, have a fighting chance on the wast front. Unfortunately I suspect this response is not representative of the population in general.

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    1. I think that more and more people now understand that we each have a part to play in looking after our planet.

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  11. It seems you are preaching to the choir, YP - count me as another singer!

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    1. As they say - birds of a feather flock together!

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  12. I agree completely with you and we are the same way. My parents and grandparents lived through the depression so I grew up automatically being frugal. We are not wealthy by any means as we live off a small amount of Social Security (old age pension here). But I have always managed our money carefully both when we were working and now and we made sure our house was paid off before we retired. We have decent emergency savings and live comfortably paying any bills off each month. Even if we were wealthy I do not think we would live much differently. I still use and love a toaster I bought over 46 years ago! (of course a new one would not last that long!) I do not believe in waste.

    I don't understand how many of my children's generation did not pick up the thrifty ways that so many of us hang on to. You often see terrible waste from some and I don't understand it. However, I have a 22 year old granddaughter that is very concerned about our planet and reducing the landfills and she will use nothing disposable and go out of her way to be frugal. Is it just different people or different generations?

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    1. Good on your 22 year old grand daughter Bonnie! Looks like she has inherited the thrift gene from you. Environmentally speaking there has been too much living for today and hardly giving tomorrow a thought.

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  13. Make the most of what you have has always been the motto in our family too.
    And being married very young all our furniture was gathered second hand which we still own and in the present we buy used building materials where we can.. there is far more quality in the old timber and the patina adds character.
    In the 60's we made our own clothes, things changed with cheaply imported clothing and most switched to buying off the rack.
    Interestingly today there seems to be a return for many to making your own for both sizing and style even with underwear there is a movement of many ladies to make their own brassiers and sizzlingly pretty they are too..ooh la la!
    Seems YP we are all on trend being frugal :)

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    1. I might make a brassiere for my wife using some string and two coconut shells. Thanks for calling by again Elle.

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  14. I live a fairly lean kind of life but I have never thought of myself as frugal.

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    1. Well you can join The Frugal Club too Kylie!

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  15. I'm working at being more frugal and less wasteful. I like reading your thoughts on this YP. Thanks for an interesting post!

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    1. Thanks for calling by again Jennifer.

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  16. My childhood lifestyle was humble...but, somehow, and I really don't know how...my now late older brother and I did without little. This I've written about many times previously...Mum worked, as did our Nana...both women did their best to make sure Graham and I had good food on the table at all times; clean, tidy clothes on our backs, and shoes on our feet. We never missed a Saturday afternoon matinee...or the circus when they came to town..or the travelling vaudeville shows and pantomimes etc., etc. et al.

    These days, I live a simple, humble existence...I don't have a lot of money...I don't own my own home...I rent a very humble, small abode...but...many are much, much worse off than I am.

    My two furry mates and I go without little...we don't need much, though. I don't need a fancy big house or a fancy big car...and I have enough clothes, and some that would match it with the best...if I was so inclined...and I am not! :)

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    1. Thanks for your personal reflections on frugal living Lee. As a child you may have not had a father around but your mother and grandmother did a grand job of bringing you and your Graham up.

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  17. You and I have nothing to argue about on this topic. WW II bought restrictions. We had to adapt. Yes, I wear some incredibly old clothing but it's still very usable.

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    1. You also qualify to join The I.F.O. -The International Frugality Organisation.

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