众所周知,现代生活有点像消费主义、浪费和债务的泥潭。在这个世界上,最新的智能手机比上一代发布不到一年,“邻居”总是领先你一步,堆积如山的塑料堵塞了水道和海洋,节俭生活的理念似乎是解决混乱的一剂良药。
Though it’s a trendy topic now, frugality has always been around. It’s close to the beating heart of homesteading, with resourcefulness and toughness flowing through its veins. Learning how to live with less (and love it) is certainly a discipline, but it is one that has a lifetime of rewards waiting along its uphill trek.
What Really Is Frugal Living?
人们可能会把节俭的生活与苦行和匮乏的生活联系在一起——吝啬的吝啬鬼,疯狂地剪优惠券,吃着少得可怜的碗米饭和豆子,而不是像“正常人”那样出去享受快乐的夜晚。Dig a little deeper than the stereotype portrayed by shows like “Extreme Cheapskates,” however, and you’ll find that frugal living is a lot more complex and layered.
As someone trying to live as frugally as possible, I contend that frugal living is better described as a lifestyle that doesn’t require money for enjoyment and fulfillment. Though careful and thoughtful management of finances is a huge element of the lifestyle, there’s far more to it than just dollars and cents.
Frugal living looks like the couple who enjoys cooking all their meals from scratch instead of feeling like theyneedto buy a restaurant meal. Frugal living looks like the parents who delight—not settle for—dressing their child in hand-me-downs and finding awesome toys at garage sales.
Frugal living looks like the girl waltzing down the street in her unique $2 thrift store outfit or like the guy spending an evening hiking through the forest, rather than relying on a movie to entertain him. Do you notice a trend? Not only are all these folks more self-reliant, using up far fewer resources and producing less waste…they’re content doing it. This is the key to frugal living, and it’s not a trick that you’ll find in a “Top 100 Frugal Life Hacks” list.
How Do I Get Started With Frugal Living?
So before I describe the physical elements of how to start up with frugal living, we need to cover the most important mental step. And that, dear Neo, is to get out of the Matrix and change your mindset. Corporations spend billions of dollars and millions of hours to glitzily convince you to spend money to make your life better.
Every commercial is tailored to show you just how much you deserve to have this latest thing and how much happier, healthier, more slim-waisted, and minty-breathed you’ll be after your purchase. At least, until the next iteration comes out. Then you’ll need to get thenewandimprovedandupdatedversion to betrulyhappy.
Step 1: Identify Why You Want To Be Frugal
Step one of becoming frugal is to figure out why you want to declare your independence from the get-more-stuff hamster wheel.
- Do you want to get out of debt?
- Reduce your impact on the environment?
- Achieve a goal—such as buying your homestead acreage—that requires you to save some serious money?
- Are you sick of depending on expensive services to feed, dress, and entertain you?
- All the above?
无论你的目标是什么,它都是你通往节俭生活的门票,你需要紧紧抓住它来完成下一步。
Related Post:How to Pay Off Debt by Thinking Like a Homesteader: 20 Practical Ideas to Try
Step 2: Make Changes
The next step is to make changes (see the lists below!) and then get through the withdrawal process. This can take anywhere from a month to a year, depending on your lifestyle, what you give up, and the support you get.
It’s easy to indulge in self-pitying thoughts when you start giving up the luxuries that once felt like necessities. Hang in there! Remember the goals that got you started in the first place and push through it to themuchbetter on the other side.
As frugality becomes more second nature, you’ll see the world differently. You’ll realize that your 1-year-old isn’t going to be traumatized if you don’t throw a themed birthday bash for 50. Your handmade gifts may bless the receiver in a personal way that no gift card could.
当你在商店买东西时,你可能会发现自己本能地问:“我能做这个吗?”我真的需要它吗?这次购买能帮助我达到目标吗?”买方的懊悔将是一段被遗忘的记忆。也许,一种新的满足会开始渗透到你的生活中。
Tips For Frugal Living
Lists of frugal living tips online cover a vast spectrum, from simple admonitions to forgo your daily coffeehouse trip to drastic pleas to move off-grid. Trying to figure out what tips to apply to your life can feel like an imposing, impossible-to-finish checklist.
I prefer to think of frugality as a journey: start changing your mindset, make lifestyle changes, and then keep progressing. Here are some ideas for everyone from the frugal-living newbie to the serious homesteader. We are going to start with some basic, beginner frugal tips and work our way up to the more life-changing ones!
Track Your Expenses
花整整一个月的时间,记录下你遇到的每一笔开支。这是一种谦逊的方式,但很好地发现任何不必要的支出可能隐藏在哪里,并将给你一个机会,开始有意识地引导你的钱。
See it this way: If you discover that you’re spending $100 a month on that daily latte, that adds up to an extra $1,200 a year that could have gone towards your student loans.
Cook Your Own Food
Learning how to use basic, whole ingredients to make satisfying meals is a skill that you can spend your life perfecting and enjoying.
如果你从来没有这样做过,试着用一块白板来帮你计划这一周的饮食(以及相关的杂货店经营)——这对我真的很有帮助!Take a look at this list of frugal meal ideas to get the ball rolling!
Thrift For Your Clothing
Get over the stigma, and you’ll soon realize that most thrift-store clothing is new or hardly used. I’ll often find items with the tags still attached.
Fix It Yourself
If you don’t know how to fix things, Google and Youtube get you started on learning how to solve nearly any technical problem. Don’t rewire your house on the first try, of course, but you’d be surprised how easy some fixes are.
Comparison Shop
When we shop online, we check at least three different websites for an item’s price. Never just buy the first listing you see without doing a bit of research. And if you find a cheaper price for the same item somewhere else, many stores will price match.
Go Into The Store With A Plan
Write it down if you need to andstick to it. No impulse buying.
Buy In Bulk
一旦你掌握了烹饪技巧,你就会知道什么东西你用得最多。大量购买通常可以省下一大笔钱!
We ordera lot of our staples through Azure—we can buy a 50-pound bag of organic flour (glyphosate free!) for FAR cheaper than anywhere else.
Stop Buying Clothes For A Year
This blogger did it,你也可以。
Make Your Own Entertainment
Unplug your devices, cancel your video streaming services, and start filling your chill-after-work time with something that doesn’t suck money from your wallet. Learn new skills, make something beautiful, or host a game night! Also, borrow movies and TV shows from your local library—it’s free.
Sleep On Every Purchase Or Don’t Purchase
Start making purchases after you’ve slept on it. Not only does this give you time to research prices and consider the cost of the item, it seriously cuts down on impulse buys!
Save Seeds/Grow Your Own Food/Forage
Once you get the infrastructure set up for a garden or a chicken coop, maintaining your own source of food can become a cheap and delightful part of every day.
And foraging can add awhole new dimension of totally free food你的饮食。在我们家里,我们几乎每天都吃免费的野生食物!
Make It Yourself
Take your DIY skills to the ultimate level. Every time you find you need something (a chair, nesting box, new skirt), try to make it yourself out of things you have or can find. You’ll get more skilled every time. For inspiration check out theFoxfire series of books,stories, diagrams, and instructions from homesteaders and farmers who have been resourcefully making what they needed and wanted from things that they had.
Quit Your Job And Become A Homesteader
It can be hard to be frugal when work requires a nice-looking suit, when you need to drive an hour to get there, and when you get home far too late to cook that scratch meal.
If you’re serious about being frugal, it may require a total lifestyle and location overhaul. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing!
Conclusion
As I sit here typing this, I’m sitting outside near the chicken coop that my husband built out of wood salvaged from the barn. I’m wearing thrifted clothes that I tailored myself, and I feel so much more comfortable than when I was trying (and failing!) to be fashionable for my job in the city.
The clothesline is full, the garden is lush with growing squash, and there are acres of wild greens and berries waiting to be foraged.
Tonight, after dinner is all cleaned up, my husband and I will sip some homemade chai on the front porch, watching the storms roll in. It took a long time for me to adjust to this lifestyle, but now, frugal living isn’t something we even think about anymore—it’s just become our normal life, and we truly love it.
…And frankly, rice and beans aredelicious, especially when topped with homemade spicy cheese sauce or turned into a decadentdaal. I don’t know why they get such a bad rap.
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