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I love frugality as a concept. I learned it from my parents who saved most of their earnings. We did not do any big holidays nor did we have anything brand new.

• serjester 6y ago
  My parents grew up in the Soviet Union and received a fairly large nest egg when my grandparents passed. Having saved their entires lives it was enough to buy a home. Well the Soviet Union collapsed, hyper inflation set in and they ended up buying a couple nice coats with the money. Hearing stories like that I've always thought the future needs to be heavily discounted. The present is certain, the future is not.
  • scarmig 6y ago
    Everyone should live their lives as if tomorrow may never come (after all, it might not!) I know a couple physically healthy, well-off people who would shoot themselves if the economy collapsed tomorrow and they lost everything.
    • cortesoft 6y ago
      If you do that, though, you are screwed when tomorrow does come, and you have no money, destroyed your body, and have not prepared at all.
      • cosmie 6y ago
        You and scarmig are both looking at the extremes. We're all screwed eventually, as death spares no life. But we never know when that day will come. So a more nuanced perspective would be to treat the now as your finale, and the future as your encore. That way, no matter when death knocks, you leave on a high note. If you put everything into your eventual encore, it's going to be one helluva encore if you get one, but incredibly bitter set piece leading up to it gets cut short, that chance never comes, and you realize just how flat your set piece ended up being. But it'll likewise be bitter if you pour everything into your finale, but end on a low note when you realize it's time for your encore and you've got nothing left for it. So avoid both extremes, and enjoy today while hedging for a potential tomorrow. As long as you keep that in mind, and consciously attempt to not invert it (i.e. maximize for a theoretical future by sacrificing your certain present), you'll generally be in a good place no matter when death knocks.
        • cortesoft 6y ago
          I agree with this.... I approach it as "now is as important as the future". Don't sacrifice your now for your future, but also don't sacrifice your future for your now.
    • imtringued 6y ago
      That makes no sense. By that logic we shouldn't spend any effort on education, we shouldn't have children or any long term plans whatsoever. I think I already made that point in a comment long ago where someone said you can't take things with you if you die. Taken on an extreme. Imagine if a person dies and he could actually take anything he desired with him. He'd certainly bring his family and his house and the planet he lived on with him. The end result would be 8 billion dead humans who no longer have a planet and were left behind. Is that really the type of world you want? People committing vandalism and self destructive behavior because they have nothing to lose?
  • UncleOxidant 6y ago
    > My parents grew up in the Soviet Union and received a fairly large nest egg when my grandparents passed. Wait, there was inheritance in the Soviet Union? How did that work? Genuinely curious.
    • tonyarkles 6y ago
      I may be mistaken here, but I’m pretty certain people still got paid money and could do what they liked with it.
    • rimliu 6y ago
      Like everywhere else. There were limits on what could be a private property, but there was stilll a private property. West calls USSR "communist", but according to communist party people were still building communism, not living in it. IIRC the term used right before the collapse was "mature socialism". Now when I think of it, I do not remember a deadline for that building to finish ever being mentioned.
    • ajuc 6y ago
      Dunno about Soviet Union but in communist Poland there were national banks and they managed saving accounts for workers. It was optional but heavily encouraged, part of your earnings went directly to it every month. It was called "PKO Saving's book". My grandparents participated in it and after decades of saving a few percent of their earnings each month the total from both of them was just enough to buy their grandkids 2 pairs of shoes :)
  • robocat 6y ago
    It also shows the value of diversity of investment - not just in the stock market sense of the word. As individuals we are often extremely exposed to: a mortgage in a single location; a single job; a single currency/economy; a single startup. It is hard to diversify as an individual unless you have significant capital to invest.
    • adrianN 6y ago
      At least this has gotten better. Not too long ago you would have most likely been 100% exposed to the small farm that provides food for you and your family and a bad harvest could literally kill you.
      • deegles 6y ago
        Considering freeze dried food can last for 30+ years, it might make sense to bulk purchase a few years worth of supply. Couple that Starlink and a homestead and you could be set financially for a long time.
• fred_is_fred 6y ago
  There is also the concept of time you will never get back. I had 2 friends that were laid off from a job with 3 months pay. One took a job the next day (after the notice period) and paid down his mortgage with the rest. The other took ~3 months to spend time traveling with his wife & kids (10 and 8 roughly). Both seem valid options, but the option to spend a few months showing your kids National Parks isn't an option when you are retired at 60. That choice is taken from you.
  • ghaff 6y ago
    It depends on circumstances. If you have reason to believe that getting a new job is trivial, then sure. Take some time off if you can afford to. If, on the other hand, you have no idea if you can get an equivalent professional job in one or two years and may involve moving (as is the case with MANY people in tech in spite of what people in the bubble may believe) then looking for a job immediately makes a lot of sense.
    • fred_is_fred 6y ago
      This was back in 2017 where cloud-native/ops jobs grew on trees.
      • ghaff 6y ago
        A lot of people assume that what (they think) is trivial for them is trivial for others who not interview as well, have flags on their resume, etc. Furthermore, what may have been trivial in 2000, 2007, or 2019 might not be so trivial 12 months later. Taking some time off may still make sense but it's always going to be a bit of a calculated risk.
• wenc 6y ago
  Very true. Money spent at different stages of life can have different utility, and there are many factors outside of our control that determine that utility. Money is an imperfect indicator/store of true value.
• Meandering 6y ago
  The real consideration is utility. Maybe you don't have the nicest car but, it offers the same utility as a premium vehicle. Now, that money saved can be used to acquire more utility than a vehicle provides alone. This is what I consider frugality because the cheapest option can result in a loss of utility when it doesn't fulfill it's purpose. Saving money is great because it hopefully means you are purchasing the same utility without unnecessary overhead. Strangely enough, not enjoying a daily premium latte might be less frugal in the long run. You'd have to consider the utility of pleasure experienced over the years versus a few extra grand for your coffin.
  • moojacob 6y ago
    > Strangely enough, not enjoying a daily premium latte might be less frugal in the long run. You'd have to consider the utility of pleasure experienced over the years versus a few extra grand for your coffin. It adds up faster than you would think: ditching your daily $3 latte saves $91.25 dollars a month. Investing that into a S&P index fund that traditionally has an average 7% annual return and 1.12% variance for over 50 years compounds into... $446,368.
    • ajfjrbfbf 6y ago
      That's plenty for my gold plated coffin.
    • raindropm 6y ago
      I like your quick math. It finally convinced me to ditch daily latte!
    • AstralStorm 6y ago
      Assuming the index fund did not go to 2% in the meantime (or wiped alongside the bank getting you only weak guarantee), and that said latte is not keeping you sane and at work. Or from getting Parkinson's later on. So, where can I get that crystal ball that lets you know the impact of any action? That'd make a fortune and infinite boredom all a possibility.
• spicymaki 6y ago
  Frugality to me is freedom. You don't need to be a slave to the wants and desires that are imposed on you by friends, family, marketers, and creditors. Coming up with creative solutions to work around replacing something, repairing a vehicle you paid off for by yourself, waiting and then getting a deal on something you want, reading a good book you got at the library, being creative with party planning is invigorating. I am living the life that I want, not the life someone else envisions.
  • rimliu 6y ago
    For other the freedom is not thinking about creative solutions how to repair a car. They have all that time free to think about something they care about.
• darth_avocado 6y ago
  Growing up in frugality, I feel I appreciate it a lot, but there's a right way to do it and there's a wrong way. However I feel I identified the limitations early in my life, to do it right. The way I see it, frugality should be "I don't need 10 pair of sneakers, I can probably do 2 quality ones, and take care of them so that they last" and not "Let's buy a couple of those cheap $10 sneakers from HnM". Spend where it matters, but don't spend because you can or because you want something impulsively.
  • AstralStorm 6y ago
    What does "spend because you can" mean? You're buying something, so, what is it? Is it the item or satisfaction?
    • loco5niner 6y ago
      I have to admit, when I find a good sale, I have a hard time only buying what I need instead of 10X what I need since it's such a good deal (I have at least a 20 years supply of jeans unless I get fat).
  • jpindar 6y ago
    In before that stupid quote about boots!
    • BirdieNZ 6y ago
      "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness."
• fatnoah 6y ago
  >Saving now for later assumes there is later, or even that well-being and health later are given. My parents had close to zero savings because they didn't really have any money. A $100 purchase was something very carefully considered. While they were frugal, they didn't live a life of denial. My dad had a canoe & kayak, both purchased used. One thing they waited on, even though they could have made it work financially, was taking a trip to Europe together. My dad passed away at 46. That trip to Europe will never happen. With almost no savings, the only thing that let my mom live with basic needs met was his life insurance policy. I'm 45 now and that experience has shaped my approach to saving and spending. From day 1, I've contributed to my 401(k) and increased the percentage saved each year and now max it out. When my son was born, the 529 savings started immediately. Balancing that, I have no problem spending money on things that I find value in, whether other people find them frivolous or not. I do carefully evaluate whether I'm getting value from the money spent, and use that as a firmer guide than the actual amount of money involved.