Giving Frugality a Workout
24 Sept, 2023
I was recently writing about Mr. Money Mustache for a future blog article on PocketSmith’s blog. FYI, they have a comprehensive blog on their website that anyone can enjoy, one that I and many others contribute to regularly.
One of their customers said they liked the ethos of Mr. Money Mutache (MMM), but they were still determining if they could get on board with the frugal lengths he goes to save money. Biking all over town? No thanks. Eating beans? That’s a hard pass. They got the point that the more you invest, the greater your future opportunities are, but they were not yet prepared to sacrifice now to make it happen. No sooner had I finished my article than the perfect example of frugality in action landed on my doorstep. That’s what I want to share today.
Today is not your day if you have come to my blog for facts, figures and investment ideas. But stick around because if you want to finish each year wealthier than you began it, you just can’t discount the impact of frugal behaviour on money.
MMM is all about bringing happiness into his life, as summed up by this post called Happiness is the Only Logical Pursuit. The things we seek that make us happier are often unrelated to pūtea. Health, exercise, friendships, meaningful relationships, self-esteem, hard work (both paid and unpaid), accomplishment, and enjoying nutritious food are just some things that make me smile.
When someone wants to get their money back on track because they realise they are just frittering their pūtea away and are still unhappy, they are searching for something that money can’t buy. It takes time to realise that not buying anything at all can bring you happiness. Go figure.
In a 2019 podcast, he said:
““Change your entire perspective on life and learn about happiness itself. And start embracing hardship and learning about your psychology and the human animal. Get the bigger picture. Zoom out of the department store, the shopping bag and the fancy car and just start learning about what you are, anyway. What’s this chunk of meat (you) on the planet for? How did you get here, and what is the purpose of your being alive? Start going back from those roots, which will help you reevaluate what it really means and what your real goal in life is. That’s what you have got to do if you want to completely fix your life and control your money and spending. You have to just throw out the whole package of consumer junk and go deeper and get a more scientific understanding of what is really going on here”. ”
Exert from Listen Money Matters Podcast. 25/11/2019. How to Retire Early with Mr. Money Mustache
Wow, that’s pretty deep stuff. It's not my usual bag, but he has a point. An experience Jonny and I recently had made his words hit a little deeper and has helped me explain just how you become more frugal.
Being open to frugality gives me more opportunities to clock up what I think of as Happiness Credits. I move through my life, trying to collect as many as possible.
This is what happened to us this week.
Jonny and I have a big yard, about 900m2, most of which is a garden. We put in hours of work to make our whare a home, and we’ve been mulling over paving some outside areas. All the other pavers and bricks that make up the hard landscaping in our yard were recycled, but crikey, new hard landscaping is so expensive; a rough budget to get someone in to do the work on just a small section of our yard was about $10,000. To do it ourselves, about $???, plus our time.
Technically, we could pay someone to come in and do the work; we can afford it, but I’d struggle to spend that much and watch someone else work in my yard. It felt too transactional, and we know from experience that we both enjoy a project. And while spending a big chunk of pūtea would mean that one part of the yard looks better, it just didn’t feel like good value for money. Something was missing.
As a result, we did nothing except mull over ideas. We were DIYers with a project in mind, looking for an opportunity to make it happen.
And this week, the phone ran. An opportunity came knocking.
Happiness Credits started ticking up.
A neighbour phoned us one Sunday evening, saying a contractor was coming the next day with a digger to rip up their driveway pavers and replace them with concrete. They wanted to know if we could use the pavers for anything because that would stop them from going to landfill. Not all of them would be usable; they were replacing the whole area because many were broken, but a large enough percentage were perfectly fine. Recycling is awesome for the environment, and we, like them, would hate to see good pavers head to the landfill.
Happiness Credits: It made me feel good that our neighbour rang to offer them to us.
Happiness Credits were also issued to me because we have watched enough Beau Miles to know that recycling, combined with exercise, is good for the planet and good for us. But sometimes you must act fast.
We shot around to the neighbour's place straight away, surveyed the situation and decided we could use them over the fence at our whare. How much were they? Free!
Happiness Credits: They could have asked for money (we offered money) but outright refused. People are kind.
We didn’t want to hold their contractor up nor muck our neighbours around, so time was of the essence. We would grab them the following day if it worked for them. It did.
This is where our previous choices to be more frugal so we could save and invest, meaning we could work less, paid off. Neither of us works on Monday. We did have prior plans; Monday also happened to be our wedding anniversary. Plans change, and we quickly figured that nothing says “I love you” more than five hours of lifting and stacking pavers together.
Happiness Credits: How good is it that after 22 years, we still get along and work well together?
We visited another neighbour and borrowed their trailer. For the few times a year, we need one, they happily let us borrow it. We always return it quickly and better than we found it.
Happiness Credits: We are active members of a good community of people. We look out for and help each other.
The very next day, Monday, we set to work, starting at about 10 am, breaking for an anniversary lunch before returning to work, finishing at about 3.30 pm. It was hard mahi, but the work was made so much easier by the fact the paver owners, despite us trying to get them to rest because they are now in their 70s, helped us all day long.
Happiness Credits: I want to be like them, with the physical fitness in my 70s to get stuck in.
Time passed quickly as we enjoyed the sunshine, the mahi and the kōrero. For Jonny and I, this was our exercise for the day. A bonus for me, a particularly chatty person, was that I knew most of the pedestrians who walked past, all of whom were interested in what was going on and stopped to chat.
Pavers being pulled up from the neighbours driveway.
Our dog Blue helping to unload the pavers from the trailer.
At the end of the day, all it cost us was spent energy. It was hard graft, stacking and sorting ~1,500 pavers, but we got so much more from the whole experience than if a truck had arrived and dropped them off.
MMM is a huge believer in physical exertion and DIY. You get so much from it:
Valuable exercise that comes from moving your body
Working collaboratively with others
Learning more about our neighbours and hearing the good wishes of everyone who walked by
Blues and Greens - being outside under the sky and in nature has massive benefits for mental health
Saving a perfectly usable product from a landfill
Letting our daughter see what a bit of hard work and teamwork can accomplish (she helped us stack the final load when she came home from school)
We saved a tonne of money
The project is now ongoing. Even more good is yet to come from this experience because now that we have all the pavers we need nicely stacked in our yard, the planning can commence for what we might do with them. The anticipation of beginning a project is as good as completing a project, and I’ll be sure to add photos when we decide what to do.
Nicely stacked pavers in our yard.
As I mull over our enjoyable day together, I ask myself if our actions are considered too extreme and too frugal. I just can’t see how it could be viewed that way. I had a great day; I really did. There was no hardship; I didn’t feel like we were going without. Instead, I think we got so much more out of the experience than if we had paid someone else to do it. The fact it didn’t cost anything was a big bonus. Mr. Money Mustache is spot on when he is genuinely bemused that people believe his frugal life is lacking somehow. After our day, I feel better for it, not worse off.
If you are looking for ways to be more frugal, seek opportunities that bring you enjoyment because those things are often free. Move your body, engage with people, be helpful, and think outside the square. Think about what the experience will give you and how many Happiness Credits you can accumulate. Focus on happiness because it really is the only logical pursuit.
