Question of the Week: Does Being Frugal Have to Mean Making Sacrifices?

Posted by Published in Frugal Living, Personal Finance, Question of the Week

Today starts a new feature on Diary of a Smart Chick. Every Tuesday I’ll be featuring a question for the readers of this blog. The idea is that we can discuss and debate about some of the topics that I really enjoy writing about. I’ll pose the question here and then you can respond and interact with each other (and me) in the comments.

Today’s question of the week:

Does being frugal have to mean making sacrifices?

Frugality is a topic that I write about a lot. What I’ve discovered is that people have extremely differing definitions of what it means to be frugal. For some people it means making a lot of financial sacrifices and doing a lot of penny-pinching. For others it simply means realigning your values so that you are saving money without feeling like you’re making sacrifices at all.

For me, being frugal means making choices but I don’t necessarily think that it means making sacrifices. If there is something that I truly want then I usually purchase it and find a way to fit that into my budget. However, I would be willing to make sacrifices if my finances demanded that I do so. So what’s your answer to today’s question of the week?

Tags: frugality, question of the week, what is frugality

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Why People Live Frugally (July 10th, 2009)

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Brian said in September 8th, 2009 at 9:25 am

I think it does mean making sacrifices. There are things that you may miss out on because you are on a budget or are being frugal. Example: There is a concert i moderately want to go to this coming weekend. It will be a great time with great people, but its not in the budget. I am sacrificing a fun evening by being frugal. Now being frugal doesn’t mean you sacrifice on the big things, but it does mean that you sacrifice on the wants that you value only moderately.

@Brian - Great point. However it could be pointed out that some people do believe in sacrificing the big things rather than the little things. They’ll move into a smaller house and get rid of their cars in over to have spending money for concerts and art supplies and whatnot. More on this: http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2009/04/5-key-sacrifices-to-make-if-you-really-want-to-save-money.html.