The current economy has brought out a desire for frugal living wisdom. It has also brought out a lot of mockery of what I like to call “grandparent amnesia” where older folks give advice that hasn’t worked for 30 years.
I’m 55, about to talk about frugal living, and hopefully I’m not going to act like it’s the late 1990s. Correct me if I’m wrong.
When it comes to frugal living activities, you have to realize that saying yes to something is to say no to other things. This is true in pretty much every area of life.
Gardens can Save Money and Cost You in Other Ways
Years ago, while struggling after a huge pay-cut, I had a garden. The point of this story isn’t about the garden though. It’s about the things we do to try to reduce spending.
I actually still have a garden even now, but the current garden is more of a fun hobby. But at the time, I had a magnificent garden that included fruit trees, berries, mature asparagus, loads of perennials as well as vegetable plants. I had a homemade composter where I deposited all of the kitchen scraps and yard waste, except when we had chickens.
When we had chickens, they ate the scraps and made compost for us, as well as providing us with eggs and meat.
There was a couple of years there, when things were super tight, and we essentially were fed around 95% out of that garden.
The motivation at the time was a mix of things:
- Desperation
- Lack of money
- Romanticizing a “simpler time”
- Enjoyment of gardening in general
As I said, I have a garden today too, so I’m not about to declare a garden a waste of time and money. There’s something therapeutic about being barefoot among nature and something restorative about permaculture.
However, that’s a lot of work for the return on your investment, and you have to have a house with a decent yard and decent soil in order to have said garden.
The Opportunity Cost
In each of these money saving, frugal living activities like gardening, there’s an opportunity cost.
When you’re spending your time and resources managing a garden and canning food, you’re not spending your time and resources making your income grow in other ways that might have a bigger impact. I eventually built a growing and successful web design and marketing business once I found the time.
Sometimes I wonder: How different would life have been if I found the time sooner instead of focusing on trimming the budget alone?
I also have always cooked from scratch, including baking bread among other things.
I love to cook so this was hardly a burden.
I found it fun, and I’m good at it. But cooking from scratch also means not doing other things with the time you’re spending, so you have to decide if this is something that you need to do because it makes you happy (and hey, some of us find baking bread very therapeutic), or if there are things more aligned with your goals that you could be doing instead.
You’re not a machine. Something has to give when you’re working your tail off trying to make ends meet. And if buying pre-cut veggies helps you eat healthier while working two jobs, buy the pre-cut veggies.
It’s all about what you can do with the resources you have.
Everyone has a different situation
I remember standing line at the grocery store when I heard a customer start berating another customer who was near tears over the fact that she was buying “packaged food” with her SNAP benefits card. There was a time when I might have also judged . Just cook from scratch. So much cheaper and better for you, I’d think to myself.
Most who’ve never been in that situation don’t know what it’s like to
- Have no time to cook
- Have no skills to cook
- Have no tools to cook (pots, pans, knives, etc.)
- Have no kitchen (living in a motel perhaps)
- Maybe just need some comfort food after living as a working class person in America where no amount of hard work alone is going to get you anywhere but exploited (been there, done that, couldn’t afford the t-shirt).
Chew the Hay, Spit the Straw
As they say, you gotta chew the hay and spit the straw whenever you get advice. Not every suggestion will work for you when it comes to any advice, but maybe it will spark a new idea in your head. You never know.
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