Frugal Living Today

When some people hear the word “frugal” they suddenly envision living in squalor with cold wooden floors and kids running around the house with bare feet.  Those people would probably be surprised to see that many frugal aficionados are actually doing much better than that.  In fact, some of the most financially stable people I know - with some of the nicest homes - are frugal at heart.

Frugality doesn’t have to mean doing without, it is the lifelong process of learning to be happy with less and finding that somewhere inside, you can actually be happier that way.  If you can have clean clothes using half the amount of store-bought detergent for example, why would you intentionally spend more money?  Even people who aren’t scraping up change for their next meal understand that there’s no point in wasting money that you worked hard to earn in the first place.

Here’s a good exercise that can put things into perspective:

Figure out exactly how much money it costs you to wash and dry and load of laundry.  Measure out the detergent and figure out how much that amount costs based on the cost of the entire container.  Do the same for any other additives you use.  You can use the info on this page to figure out how much the washer and dryer (if you use one) will cost.

Then take that amount and using the amount you are paid per hour at work, figure out exactly how long you have to work to pay for that load of laundry.  It can be an eye opening experience to say the least, especially if you do several loads each week.