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This post is a rant, but it brings up an interesting point.
When does frugality go too far?
When do your actions of trying to save money actually cost you?
Frugality teaches us that a few bucks is more precious than our time and attention. I say this as someone who used to live off $25/week of groceries.
Is it really worth it to spend a whole frustrating minute of your day to squeeze out the last drop of toothpaste worth 1c, or spend an extra 2 hours cooking and washing up to turn a chicken carcass into bone broth that will take up a quarter of your fridge space for 3 months, to salvage $10? Or constantly stress about unplugging appliances and the TV every night, which saves roughly $1-2 of energy per year?
Not to mention people’s houses that reek of vinegar because they want to use their homemade cleaning products, which often take twice as much scrubbing.
At the end of the year, you’d be lucky to save a thousand bucks by implementing a couple dozen of these frugal hacks. Yes, it adds up, and for some people that’s a lot of money. But the cost could easily be 100 hours of free time, plus the constant background anxiety that you’re losing money every time you forget one of these habits. From a financial perspective, most people could spend 100 hours per year investing in skills to build a rewarding side hustle/hobby business that could make 5x the amount saved from being frugal.
When does frugality go too far?
When do your actions of trying to save money actually cost you?
Frugality teaches us that a few bucks is more precious than our time and attention. I say this as someone who used to live off $25/week of groceries.
Is it really worth it to spend a whole frustrating minute of your day to squeeze out the last drop of toothpaste worth 1c, or spend an extra 2 hours cooking and washing up to turn a chicken carcass into bone broth that will take up a quarter of your fridge space for 3 months, to salvage $10? Or constantly stress about unplugging appliances and the TV every night, which saves roughly $1-2 of energy per year?
Not to mention people’s houses that reek of vinegar because they want to use their homemade cleaning products, which often take twice as much scrubbing.
At the end of the year, you’d be lucky to save a thousand bucks by implementing a couple dozen of these frugal hacks. Yes, it adds up, and for some people that’s a lot of money. But the cost could easily be 100 hours of free time, plus the constant background anxiety that you’re losing money every time you forget one of these habits. From a financial perspective, most people could spend 100 hours per year investing in skills to build a rewarding side hustle/hobby business that could make 5x the amount saved from being frugal.
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