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Has your frugality had an impact on others?

2K views 11 replies 11 participants last post by  gogirlanime 
#1 ·
This thread might apply to those who dramatically changed their lifestyle rather than those who have been living the frugal life for awhile.

Has your frugality had an impact on others?

I made a major commitment just this past year to live more frugally. I stopped buying clothes (I have plenty), reduced my food budget by 40%, eliminated eating out and dramatically reduced cooking for others and buying gifts for others.

I've received mostly positive feedback from people who understand why I did this but, from some, I've received signals that something must be wrong. How are you feeling seems to be the most common lead in because I am no longer having lavish feasts. "You're too focused on money" was the most negative comment I've received, so far.

I just thought this observation was interesting. The biggest shocker was when my friends and relatives "heard" I was stepping down from an administrative position to teach full time starting July 1 and taking a 40% cut in salary, they could not understand the apparent paradox. My brother is 100% supportive of me even though he probably had the most to lose. He has been frugal all his life and is delighted that I'm cutting back to retire early.

Anyone else have "reactions" to their change in lifestyle?
 
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#2 ·
Dh's family is always after us to live a little. That we can't get anywhere without a little debt. We turned down a trip with them and BIL. They wanted us to rent a condo for $2500/wk. That is a ALOT of money. It would have been a 10 hour drive one way, meaning gas and restaurants.

We have often gone away for a weekend with dh's parents but this year dh and I already discussed that we aren't doing that this year.

Dh's friends keep bugging him that he needs to get us new vehicles. And can't understand why he won't.
They are in shock that we've survived the past 5 months with him being off work. They don't know how we managed. We even built up our savings considerably. We did some pretty heft cut backs. We don't have $800/month in car payments, no RV payment, no CC payments, no time share, no ..... we have a mortgage and utilities. The kids have their lessons and sports, but all something we plan for.

Our sports community gets a little frustrated with us, since we don't want to travel all over the country. It's not in our budget. We can pull it off. It's hard on the teams since we have the teams only goalie. No goalie, not roadtrip. We do some, but at times they want to do a trip that would cost the families $30,000 all together for a 2 day trip. Not really wisely spent money. Where a 2 hour drive, 2 day trip would save $27,000. Not a math genius here, but it doesn't make sense.

My parents never say anything. They are much like us. Stick close to home, and try to enjoy what's local, and use up what you have. We do spend money, perhaps we should save more, but we are on track to pay off the house before dh hits 50, we're on track to help kids pay cash for university, even though BIL and SIL keep commenting snidely that they don't know how are kids will ever go to University with our incomes. They earn 6-digit incomes, but debt up to their eyeballs. Dh and I don't make a combined 6-digit income. Jokes on them. They said they are doing really good, only the Lexus car payment, the truck payment, 2 LOC and the RV. Their mortgage is 20 years from being paid, BIL will be 48 this year. Really good. *sigh*

My brother calls me cheap on occasion. But we have goals, at 48 he has never owned a home, and the area he lives in is $2500/mo rent. Not sure how they will fare long term.

We don't talk about our money with family. On occasion we're asked, and everyone is surprised. When we had debt, it was still way less than anyone we know. Truthfully, we don't know anyone at all that only has a mortgage payment.
 
#3 ·
I've always been frugal due to not having enough money for the basics. I dated a guy and he was a spender (and compared to me he still is) he slowly started to change his ways. He started using coupons, price checking, buying no name, cooking from scratch.....it was fun watching the changes he made.

My daughter hated growing up in a frugal house - not enough money to buy everthing she thought she "needed". Now that she has a child of her own she is finally starting to see the benefit of a frugal life (amazing how not having enough money to feed your child will change your perspective.) She is now budgeting, gardening, gleening from family members gardens, leaning to pressure can and hot water bath, dehydrate, buying on sale..... I get weekly phone calls on how to ______. It's been fun to help (only when asked) and to watch the changes she has made. I hope these will be life long changes and not just because life is a little tough right now.

Like you, I have also been told I'm too focused on money. I no longer need to be so "tight" with my money but I choose to be anyhow - I know no other way to live....and wouldn't change it if I could.
 
#4 ·
Impact on others? besides my now adult children, who live extremely frugal lifestyles. . . no debt except their houses, etc.

I've taught classes at the local community college on "Christmas for $100", "Reduce Your Debt" and others. I published a booklet of nutritious, budget friendly meals that our local WIC chapter snapped up and distributes to it's clients on a regular basis -- we've updated it 3 times are in the process of updating it again.
 
#5 ·
Yep I have gotten LOTS of flack from relatives.
Comments include: "You are so cheap!!", "You need to bring out some of the money under the mattress and spend it." " You are going to die with all that money?" " You should live a little" " You should travel more" " You should have bought a bigger house, I could never be comfortable in your tiny house." " Your appliances are too small".
However these same relatives have new truck payments ( they are in their 70's), big house payments ( there are only 2 of them and they are in their 40's), new car payments, excessive credit card debt, student loans which are over 20 years old ( lots of interest tacked on), etc.
I have learned to ignore them.
 
#7 ·
I went thru job loss due to health issue 10 years ago. Up till that time, I had lived comfortably on modest income and had to live conservatively as I supported myself. Friends would state their disappointment when I did not splurge on lots of entertainment out and dealt with the whining from friends who lived with their parent. Then the bad times hit, these friends are long gone since the gifts, trips and going out needed to stop but I learned who my good friends really were because it didn't matter. We still got to spend time together so things were good.
 
#10 ·
My husband thinks I worry about money too much. Other than that nobody cares. My daughter has never cared. She really never asks for anything, and never has. My friends and family consider saving money and getting good deals on things to be the smart thing to do. None of us is rich. We're doing jobs that are needed by society, but don't necessarily pay a ton. Clergy, social work, health care, teaching, farming...
 
#11 ·
Good question! Maybe. We were dear friends with a couple in town. They were horrible at managing money, her in particular. She informed me should would never 'emasculate' her husband by having a household budget, and that she'd 'always' have a mortgage payment. He didn't seem to care for her money issues, but it seems little was done to rectify the situation. They'd do things like not have money for heat in Nov. when they spent over $1k on a weekend in NYC a few weeks earlier. Their finances were always in crisis mode because they didn't bother to even attempt to manage them.

They've split, and are towards the end of a divorce. We are still friendly with him, but not her. He's watcedh our progress to becoming debt-free-except the house with mild interest, but I never had the impression that anything 'stuck'. We ran into him this weekend, after 6 or 8 months of not hearing from him.

He's got a new-to-him car- an '06, good mileage, nice shape....paid cash, about $8k. He has the credit to get a loan, but he didn't. I'd like to think it's because he's witnessed us killing off our car loans and then only buying what we could afford, with cash. When we started, he moaned that he could 'never' do that. Maybe watching us do it swayed his opinion, maybe not. But he sure was proud to tell us repeatedly how he has NO payment on his new vehicle, and we sure were happy to share in his joy over it.
 
#12 ·
The ironic thing is my dad taught me to be a penny pincher but now he said to me, "if you are fine living a minimalistic life, that is fine for me" he didn't directly say it but knowing him he doesn't understand why I don't "want it all" I am frugal both because I can't afford otherwise but I also don't want otherwise because 99% of purchases are not needed, they are needed because society tries to make you feel like you need it.

Some have given me a look like, "you're obsessed with money" in a way they are sort of correct. I am not obsessed with having money or making money, but educating myself and others on how to utilize your money better, we waste so much of it on overly expensive things, or unneeded things.

I don't get to go out as often as I used to and that lost me a couple of friends I wasn't super close to.

Overall it hasn't sacrificed much in my life where it involves others. In some ways it has improved it.
 
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