getting over being frugal

[IanNewman]

I'm only frugal with myself. When it comes to children, I'm willing to spend money, but when buying things for my own use, I count every penny.

[scfr]

My focus these days is on spending mindfully. Because we are now on pretty solid footing financially, I do got ahead and spend after putting thought and research in to it (most of the time). We did that when building our house, we spent when we decided it was worth it to us but not with reckless abandon. We definitely spent on wants and things that were splurges on the house. I spent some on a trip (although of course maximizing miles and free hotel stays and cooking at the hotel with food bought at Aldi - no need to go hog wild - lol) and treating my extended family to a couple outings this year.

There are still areas where I have a hard time spending. I need more clothes. It's an ongoing issue. I have a hard time spending on clothes unless I find a rock-bottom-bargain, and those are harder to find. I spent less than $100 on clothes this year. And we've been in our house over a year and still have a list of furniture we want to buy but keep waiting for a great deal. *sigh*

It's still a struggle in some areas to spend. But I'd say we've made some strides.

[scfr]

In addition to what I mentioned above, I no longer hesitate to spend when it has to do with avoiding injury or otherwise staying safe. I started fetching so many library books for my mom that I decided to buy a collapsible rolling cart, full price. Also bought a high quality battery-operated lantern in case of power outages. DH bought an extension pole thing that we can use to dust hgh places, change lightbulbs, etc. At our age, purchases like that just make sense.

[MarkB]

Like Drake3287 I could have written most of these posts. We have been frugal all of our lives, and it largely came from how our parents raised us. Together my wife and I had 77 years in the workforce. I started my 401-K at age 23 not really understanding what I was getting into at the time. We saved regularly and worked hard. We both retired early at age 59. We paid off the mortgage on our 5,000 sq.ft. home one year before retiring and six years before the original loan payoff date by paying small additional amounts on the principal with each monthly mortgage payment. We didn’t buy adult toys (boats, motorcycles, RVs, etc.) nor a second residence or beach getaway. My wife still primarily shops BOGO sales for groceries at Publix grocery stores or every day low prices at Walmart. Most clothing is bought at Kohl’s on sale. We drive our vehicle(s) until the wheels fall off. We retired at the end of 2012 and our biggest splurges these days are travel. We travel about 20 weeks out of the year. In our 10 years of retirement we have taken over 120 trips and our retirement savings today are 18% higher than the day we retired. To the point of the original post our biggest concern in considering becoming less frugal is the balancing act of weighing aging, health care costs and the unexpected health care emergency against the possibility of running out of retirement savings. Otherwise we stay on course like always. We will both turn 70 in 2023.

[riverwed070707]

Our mindset is similar to most who have posted. We rarely if ever "splurge" and have more of a "value-based" mindset. We live in a modest home, drive nice, reasonable "new to us" cars (which were not inexpensive but are not unreasonable), primarily shop at Aldi (vs Wegmans) and BJs wholesale club, etc.

If there's anything of substance we "splurge" on, it's vacations/experiences.

All of this. But even when it comes to vacations/experiences, we're not staying at the Ritz, we just prioritize travel over other spending and we do it often. August was the only month I didn't travel in 2022 (18 trips, 28 cities, 73 days!) and my budget for it is relatively large but never spent as much on one trip as the family that saves for years to go to Disney.

[jenn_jenn]

I don’t consider myself frugal but I do think we manage our money well.

We earn a lot, we save a lot, we spend a lot. I am very mindful of our spending and look to get the most of my dollars but I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it’s just being smart with your money.

To the Wall Street dudes my husband works with, we are penny pinchers. To my siblings who all three household incomes combined make less than we do, we are spendthrifts.

Maximizing the utility of your dollars across saving, investing, and spending will mean different things for different people.

I think it helps to look at money like a tool and how it can best serve you.

[kork13]

Maximizing the utility of your dollars across saving, investing, and spending will mean different things for different people.

I think it helps to look at money like a tool and how it can best serve you.

That's an exceptionally healthy outlook for money management, and very succinctly put.

I occasionally give folks advice about their money (a friend asked me to sit down with him next week to look at everything for him) -- I'll have to borrow that as an overall working mindset. Very simple to explain & understand. Thank you!

[myrdale]

My DH tells me when I hesitate just do it. The fact I hesitate shows the thought put into the spending.

I agree 100% with this.

Also there are a few things which need to be defined. Being frugal is not being cheap. And budgeting blow money is not wasteful. The whole purpose in my opinion of saving is so you can have it to spend later, in what ever form you see fit.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I'm 57 and before the age of 50 I saved like a mad-man. When I hit 50 it occurred to me that I should start spending and enjoying some of the fruits of my labor of saving at all costs because today could be my last day at my age. I still find myself trying to save and not be so frugal but now it is getting easier for me to buy things when I would have not bought it whether it be a low cost items or more expensive things. I keep reminding myself why should I leave a large inheritance to my family and to spend more on myself. When I think about people who die and leave loads of debt for their family to fix but not necessarily have to repay since it was not the family who incurred the debt, I think to myself that maybe I'm doing something wrong by saving so much.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I'm 57 and before the age of 50 I saved like a mad-man. When I hit 50 it occurred to me that I should start spending and enjoying some of the fruits of my labor of saving at all costs because today could be my last day at my age. I still find myself trying to save and not be so frugal but now it is getting easier for me to buy things when I would have not bought it whether it be a low cost items or more expensive things. I keep reminding myself why should I leave a large inheritance to my family and to spend more on myself. When I think about people who die and leave loads of debt for their family to fix but not necessarily have to repay since it was not the family who incurred the debt, I think to myself that maybe I'm doing something wrong by saving so much.

Time is short. You don't know how much time you have. What if you retire and die the next day? Isn't that a song?

[kork13]

I think to myself that maybe I'm doing something wrong by saving so much.

I have these concerns so the time. Especially knowing our situation, I could stop saving altogether today & we'd probably be just fine. And yet I continue to save 30-40% of gross. I'm slowly becoming more willing to spend, but saving aggressively is so much a mindset for me that it's always a bit of a challenge.