Three Reasons to be Frugal AF

1. Obvious one– Money

This one doesn’t need much explanation. When you are frugal AF, you save money. And the better you are at being frugal, the better you are at saving money.

People often ask me how I am able to travel as much as I do and seem to be confused about how it makes sense financially. Part of why I’m able to do this is because of my frugal lifestyle, but the other part is that my frugal habits don’t stop when I’m traveling.

Sometimes is hard for people to understand because when they vacation for 1 week it costs them a ridiculous amount of money, because they treat themselves. Fair enough, if you only have 1 week of freedom, by all means get a massage, order the fancy drinks, treat yo’self!

The way I travel, typically for longer periods of time, that type of “vacationing” lifestyle just isn’t sustainable. You can’t be treating yourself the entire time, so you kind of live normal life but in a different country. Yes you spend money on activities and buses, but if you are money savvy, you choose destinations where your dollar is strong, you negotiate prices, you sacrifice a few things here and there to save a few dollars so that you can travel more.

Once I walked for 1 hour instead of paying for a 5 dollar taxi. It seems crazy to most people, even me now looking back at it… But I had time and I was in the mindset of saving every dollar possible.

2. Planet, resources, consciousness

So if you live in Canada or any developed country, you open your tap and water flows out, your grocery store has an abundance of food and you likely have so too much clothes. It can be easy to forget that these are resources from our planet that require a lot of energy to produce. A lot of waste is caused by people’s negligence towards the scarcity of resources. When you live a frugal lifestyle, you are more conscious of waste because why would you throw out a perfectly good thing? People with frugal lifestyles make sure that the food in their fridge gets eaten and doesn’t go to waste, that the things they purchase live a long life so they don’t have a to buy another.

Electronic waste is a huge problem in our society, people replacing their phones for no real reason… And when things break, if you’re a cheap motherfucker like me, you fix it! So learn some skillzzz and fix your god damn stuff !! I have had the same laptop since 2012 and it has been through A LOT! I keep saving its life because I can!

I could rant on clothing all day with how much waste it creates in the landfills. Just wear the clothes you have or buy second-hand clothes!

IT’S GOOD FOR THE PLANET TO BE CHEAP

3. Materialism and fulfillment

OK NOW…. This one is my favorite. Living a frugal lifestyle (to me) means basically never buying things for materialistic or superficial purposes (i.e. – things you don’t actually need). The thing is, I’ve realized that in life, materialistic things don’t bring true happiness. You may feel good about yourself for a few days with a new watch or handbag, but it’s not significant enough to actually make you feel fulfilled in your life when you spend all your money on bullshit.

SO, when you are frugal, you become a minimalistic fulfilled human that doesn’t rely on materialistic goods to feel whole.

Don’t give it to ad campaigns telling you what you need to be happy, don’t give in to consumerism!

Stay woke friends.