Why are you frugal?

[bustedparts]

I don't know if this has been asked before, but I was wondering what motivates everyone here to live a frugal lifestyle?

I have noticed that frugal living is not for everyone. some people feel the need to keep up with the Jones and some people take frugality to a whole different level.

[Spirit Deer]

I was raised that way. It carried over into my adult life.

We shop garage sales and thrift stores and watch our pennies so we can afford the big stuff, like our lake home and our camper.

I always think it's funny when people say stuff like "you have that nice house at the lake, why do you need to shop at garage sales?" They really don't get it, and have it exactly backwards. Without the secondhand shopping, we couldn't afford our home!

[Rhiamon]

For me right now it is because I am a single mother living on disability. I know that things are not going to get better with things and as I watch the prices rise I am happy that I am frugal. I have never really wanted the best or the newest, I like shopping in second hand stores, and I LOVE the library!!! I think everyone should rediscover the library!

[river]

I wasn,t raised in a frugal life style I had what ever i needed and a few extras so .,as a adult I tended to continue to induldge.
Now I am 41 and have no savings to speak off and would like to
start saving and the best way to do this I think is to become frugle . Which I have to say has been a easy trasition. I love
to find a great sale and the thirft store is my best friend and someday I will be very happy to say I have some savings!

[Judi Dial]

It's the only way I can figure to live that helps pay the bills!

Judi

[Contrary Housewife]

Like SpiritDeer for us it is about having the things we want, and not blowing the money (time and energy) on things we don't want or need, or things that suck at our resources. So we shop carefully, have things repaired rather than replaced, 2nd hand if it's a good deal, we save, we're thrifty, and we won't ever pay finance fees or CC interest again. In short, we have learned to live exceedingly well *within* our means.

[Shelli_wnj]

Neither my husband nor I were raised frugal. My parents had to have the newest and best of everything, and mortgaged the house to the hilt for it. My husband's parents ended up loosing their house because they wouldn't stop living in the way in which they had become accustomed. We both came into the marriage understanding that neither of us wanted to live that way.
We started out what we though was frugal. Then, hard times hit. Now we are more frugal than we ever thought possible, and still aren't as frugal as we could be. But now it's out of necessity. I think if we were ever to recover from the economic downfall, that we would continue to be frugal, though.

[dancemommy]

Financial reasons. We must be frugal in order to do all of the things we would like to do in our lives. Such as being able to be a stay at home mom, allowing our children to participate in great activities, living in a nice neighborhood, providing enriching vacations and experiences for our children, etc. We must be frugal where we can in order to do these other things.

[greekislandgirl]

I grew up living in a very frugal household with the attitude that Rae mentions. My father often said "rich people are rich because they are careful with money". We weren't rich but we were "comfortable" as my father said. However, I sometimes felt that my parents overdid it and I felt deprived in some ways, and when I got to college, I overspent on non-essentials and grew to believe that quality was worth paying top dollar for. I became accustomed to justifying expensive purchases because they were higher quality (even when I didn't really need the item).

That went on for about a decade, but then I got married around the same time that the country I moved to almost went bankrupt and had to withdraw from the international bond markets and is now being administrated by the IMF. Suddenly we had to deal with things like my husband's salary being cut, me facing (and now dealing with) unemployment, and very high inflation. I freaked out at first and jumped into every frugal behavior I could find.

That was about 9 months ago. We're taking it in stride now. Careful budgeting and frugal living DO work. We're able to meet all our obligations, plan for the future, and we don't feel like we're missing out that much. I try not to whine too much, because I see so many people in much worse positions than we are in. I'm also very glad, after all, that I grew up in a frugal household!

[Nellonello]

While growing up I saw my extended family being frugal but my mom was not. I think now that I am older I see more tension between my mom and dad due to her needing to spend and realized that I was following in her footsteps.
So I took a look at our income and expenses and realized that we were wasting away our "extra" income on cr@p that we didn't need while living from paycheck to paycheck and accumulating debt (and ton of stress).
I also feel like we have too much stuff and it stresses me out as though we live very clean and pretty organized I just wish I knew where everything was and what all we have.

[AmyBoz]

I wasn't raised frugally, and made a lot of mistakes with money in my early 20's. It wasn't until I was about to be on maternity leave with my first child in 2001, that I started to become frugal. It was, actually, at that time that I first found the village!

Faced with being out of work for a few months, dh and I went into high savings mode and over the course of 9 months, saved $10,000!!! (We've never been able to duplicate that feat, no matter how hard we try...harder to do with 4 kids!) Then, while on maternity leave, I continued to clip coupons, and shop wisely. We cut the budget to the bare minimum and did great!

From then on, it just stuck with us. It no longer made sense to spend the way we had before having Dd. So, frugality stayed with us. At times, it was more like a game: "How much can we save this month?" At others, it was a necessity, like during the other maternity leaves with our other children (including right now!).

So, it is now just a way of life for us, and we can't imagine living any other way!

[thesightofoneself]

because i live on a fixed income of nothing

[photogal06]

I'm frugal because I have to be. We homeschool, so we live on a single income, and dd is a competitive dancer, which costs a lot of money. There's no way we could swing that and saving for retirement and accelerating our mortgage payoff without being frugal.

I was raised in an environment of being frugal to the point of being cheap, so once I moved away from home, I rebelled against that in a big way. It wasn't until I was 39, with no savings, multiple car payments and 2 mortgages that I decided I needed to swing back. We are comfortably frugal---we save money where we can, but I will never be cheap the way my parents were.

[jas]

Growing up my parents were very good with thier money. We had everything and then some. Both of my parents grew up in the depression so they didn't squander much. I am sure they pinched pennies, but it just was not talked about at least not with me. I had what I needed. Times were a bit different when I was little anyway that you just got gifts on birthdays and holidays.

Now for my family now it is to make all the ends meet. I have been a sahm for the better part of 22 years. It has been a lifestyle for sure. We have taken a few vacations, mostly visiting family or pooled money with family to rent a beach house. Now that we have been doing things this way for so long and learning new things along the way I don't think we would do things too much different if we came into a bunch of money. Well some things anyway. Even if you have more expendable money you don't have to waste it we would still want the biggest bang for the buck.

[Ramona]

My parents were first generation Americans and lived a frugal lifestyle. Mom sewed most of my clothes, including coats. We had a nice house and everything we needed. She was a SAHM and a wonderful cook and baker.

Now I find it challenging and sometimes exhilarating to be frugal. I do coupon when it's something I need, I saved $5.00 this morning at WalMart.

If I had a lot of money, I wouldn't live differently. I've never needed designer logos.