Frugal [froo-gull] adjective 1. sparing or economical with regard to money or food 2. simple and plain and costing little 3(Me). This definition is perfectly boring and while it so unmistakably points out the obvious to us, it doesn't teach us how. Nor does capitalism. In fact, just the opposite. One might say capitalism is an antonym of frugal. Not really, but it sure acts like it. So while we spend our time trying to figure how to live more with less clutter, let me tell you my theory on buying frugal and why it matters and a bit on my method of measure.
History: The word’s earliest latin origin is that meaning Fruit. Such a sweet symbol of simplicity. Steve Jobs, world renowned tech entrepreneur, and guru, had a primary objective, which was radically simplifying our interface. He recognized frugality when he chose his moniker. He wanted technology to behave as an extension of ourselves rather than a bunch of machines we had to maneuver. In doing this tedious task of blending our hand with our devices, he was a monumental success. Just look at what his inspiration has accomplished. Toddlers program smart phones to do things when their mom’s aren’t looking and when mom realizes what happened, sometimes even she can’t figure out the simple things her child did. He made the learning curve of computation instinctual. Our devices are doing things behind the scenes we have no idea how but they operate the way humans think. Apple. Fruit. Frugality.
I suggest we make it our mission to do the same thing Jobs did with his interface, with our personal economy. Make our finances an extension of ourselves rather than have euphoric happiness on payday and suffrage while paying the utilities. (Disclaimer: Nothing actually makes bills not suck) After each month goes by, and after we’ve wasted what flexible room we have to play around with, there’s little to show for it. Most of us people don’t even track what we spend. Do you? I have been for a few years now, imperfectly at first, better as it becomes ritual, and it has been illuminating. Start logging your receipts and categorizing them. It takes some time to become a complete picture of your budget, but it doesn’t take long to start showing you your little disproportionate extras that could be cut. Most people don’t have a clue how much a coffee habit actually costs.
“The cost of a thing is the amount of life you exchange for it” -Thoreau, from Walden I wonder if anyone has calculated their budget by hours worked translated from their income. I'm tempted to try it. Perhaps next year I'll begin this. You see one of our goals is to live on what we need with an early semi retirement. That means reducing our budget enough to work fewer hours and meet our needs, the opposite of trying to grow our household economy. And we'll get there with time.
I first started tracking after I started a restorative and custom woodworking business because I was taught to buy a quality tool by the men who preceded me as craftsmen. Some people call this BIFL (Buy It For Life), though not the guys I was taught from. They’d say catchy things like “a man is only as good as his hammer.” I had a good hammer, but I bought at a garage sale from a retired carpenter. I never needed a replacement for it. When you’re starting out in a thing, you don’t even have a budget yet, if you’re lucky you have a loan and unlucky to have interest payments. I had garage sales and a part time job with a wood turner. So I got the idea in my head that better, or even best, doesn’t have to mean most expensive (although sometimes it does). Good paint, for example, has a higher price tag than paint that sucks. And trust me, bargain paint ends up being more expensive over time. More coats, bad fading, sometimes adhesion issues. You get the idea.
As we move through life, we move through goods. We go through toothbrushes, toilet paper(which will be fun to discuss), shoes, clothing, travel mugs, computer technology, even friends, and let’s not forget the regular stops at the grocer. As we do we become comfortable with brands, and we do for varying reasons. Challenging our own brand loyalties with budget tracking and expense reports, we can test those brands against real dollars. Example: I’m at the store and I see cheap TP comes in a 24 pack with each roll consisting of 120 linear feet, meanwhile Fancy brand supersoft double ply with soothing aloe comes in a 12 pack with each roll consisting of 96 linear feet. I’ve tried both. One is kinda scratchy but gets the job done, and the other is near pleasurable. But how do I do the math? Because even though my quick swipe phone computation software (thanks Steve) can tell me how much each sheet costs if I really want to count pennies, and it clearly shows the scratchy brand is about half the cost of the fancy brand, I also know that I have to unroll more of scratchy brand than I do the soft beautiful satiny paper because its also thicker. Well the store math failed. But! I can buy and use each brand for three months, and with my budget tracking spreadsheet, in six months I’ll know exactly how much I'll need to spend on one vs the other over a year. Now I can weigh my options more realistically. And I might end up finding out that I’m not spending any more on fancy brand, or I might find out that fancy brand is just robbing me blind with softness as an allure, because by the time I stand up, wash, and leave, I’m only thinking about whether or not anyone is going to be walking into my smelly bathroom and I no longer care about my loving, or scratchy, experience of clean up. That's the beauty of real time expenditure tracking. Eliminating all the shopping variables and learning what works best for you, and being able to measure that with your real dollars spent, instead of fumbling around, and trying to rationalize the advertised pricing. Their system doesn't work for our home. It works for their competition with others and their bottom line. Find out what works for YOUR bottom line. Ahem.
Some things are worth it because they do save for you over time. Others are not. Everyone’s usage is unique. Buying cheaper is a good start to saving money, then buying best comes in and proves itself worthy of its markup, maybe. More often than not, you'll be surprised that the cheaper version is just fine. This is the way to know your purchases are the smart ones. Because not every man needs Mjolnir, like Thor does. Whatever buying decisions you make, tracked spending is the only real measuring stick of the rule that “a man is only as good as his hammer”.
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