Frugal Living: What is Frugality and is it Worth it?

It’s now January of 2018. Have you thought about ways to be frugal and save more money? Depending on your situation, is frugal living always the best thing to do?

Are you thinking about living cheaply at least for this year and how can you live more frugally? Let’s explore frugality and frugal living. Is this frugality thing just a mindset and is it really worth it?

Many people feel the crunch of too much month at the end of the paychecks. It is partly because they have overextended themselves on credit and are now looking for ways to cut back on their lifestyle.

For many, going down the thought process of being more frugal is the lifeline that they think will help them achieve a more positive financial lifestyle.

However, is frugality mindset just another name for a lack mindset? The opposite of an abundance mindset! Let’s explore this a little bit. By definition, frugal means the economic use of money by way of spending and saving, not wasteful.

So if you take this literally and apply it to your life, it could mean that you are simply going to be a good steward of the material blessings you have in life.

This includes money and possessions. You will not seek to waste it and overindulge. You will think about commodities as a scarcity that needs to be protected at all costs. You then become more frugal in your use of credit and this can be a good thing.

However, the mind then thinks that once something is used, it cannot be replaced. Once the money is spent, it cannot be replaced. This results in a lifestyle that limits the amount of risk that one is willing to take with their money.

Frugal living means that it should not waste money, and this may include taking risks with money.

It means keeping money in a safe place like a bank account. Maybe you will not get much return, but you will not lose it either. Of course, that is not necessarily true. Because no matter what you do with money, it will always have risk associated with it. Being frugal with money does not remove the risk.

For example, keep money in a bank account over long periods of time creates inflation risk, or we would say it loses its purchasing power. This is a frugal approach that actually erodes over time. What is lost is that money needs to flow for it to be effective.

So what is lost on people with a frugal mindset is that it has less to do with being a good steward of money and more to do with the fact that they think that there will always be a lack. It is somewhat being a slave to money.

So is it possible to have an abundant mindset while being a good steward of the money you do receive?

The answer is “Yes”.

Let’s try renaming this as a “frugundant” mindset. By my definition “frugundant” is accepting that money is simply a tool, which is an idea used to accomplish what you need to accomplish in life.

It means not excepting scarcity as a valid option but seeks to be a good manager of the resources and taking calculated risks to outpace and outperform inflation. It seeks to look for areas where money can flow into and produce extraordinary results.

It means to a person that understands this world is filled with abundance, that lack is just an illusion that needs to be ignored and never paid attention to. It means that frugality should be replaced with the good stewardship that takes the risk.

Even Jesus in the scriptures wanted a return on investment and condemned the steward that simply buried the money in the ground (in modern times this means a bank account). So do not confuse frugality with avoiding abundance. They can and should co-exist.

Take time to actually evaluate what you mean by a frugal mindset and match it up with an abundant mindset. You will not be disappointed.