Is Being Frugal and Thrifty Boring?

Frugality is not boring

My name is Amelia, and I’m married to Joel. We got married at age 19 and have two beautiful children that we choose to homeschool. To be able to do that from such a young age, not go into debt, and be able to do things like buy our first house, we live a very frugal lifestyle.

People often say your life is boring when you’re frugal, that everything you do is boring. They even suggest that you need to go out and have some fun, go on holiday, treat yourself to something nice, go shopping, and buy loads of new clothes and other things.

Whatever it is, there's always something they have to say. So, I wanted to address why people think the frugal lifestyle is so boring and how it can actually help you reach your personal and financial goals.

Slow living lifestyle

The way we spend our time as a frugal family is really slow and calming. A lot of people I know say they're always waiting for their next holiday or their next big adventure. I find that really sad because you're missing out on all of that time between the holidays and between other exciting things.

We enjoy a slow living lifestyle. We enjoy our garden. We enjoy a lovely summer's day when we’re able to just go and walk around. We enjoy those cold, windy winter nights where we can sit and play games on our dining room table altogether. Or, we can sit and enjoy a show together.

It's not the frugal lifestyle that's boring, it's your mentality. Find beauty in the small things, read a really good book that fills you with joy, have a really yummy home-cooked dinner, or spend time together as a family.

We have found by living a really frugal life and not having a huge amount of accessible, flexible money, that we learn to enjoy the small things more.

Saving up for holidays

Honestly, I'm really glad we have been able to enjoy the slow-living lifestyle because I was brought up always going on very nice holidays. And I remember thinking that although I've been to all these amazing countries, I've not actually seen any of them.

Because we would go to an all-inclusive hotel and never leave. And I realized growing up that the holidays I had as a kid are very different from the holidays that me and Joel really enjoyed doing back before we had our second child back in 2018.

Back then, we saved up and went on a nearly three-week-long trip, traveling around Hawaii. It was not a frugal adventure, it cost us a fortune, but it was a huge dream that we had, and we did it as frugally as possible.

But we saved for ages. We found the best deals. We stayed in a ridiculously rundown apartment, and we hired a car and drove everywhere. We cooked a lot of our own food, and we did all of our own stuff.

Reaching financial goals

Joel and I are living such a fulfilled life, even though it might not look like it from the outside. We don't follow the newest trends. We're just living in the moment. And living a frugal life doesn't have to be boring if you learn to love the simple things.

We are living this life so that perhaps one day we can retire early. That is our goal.

One thing we really dream of doing one day is buying a van and doing it up like all the van life things that you see online, but then being able to travel around Europe.

Living by your own rules

We decided to live our lives getting married at 19, having kids at 21, and homeschooling them. There's just a lot of stuff we do that people have always had an opinion on. And we learned very, very early on that we just do not care.

Generally, we've just done things very differently from today's society. I'm so happy that we have because you potentially see these people that look like they've got these amazing lives. You might look at our lives and think that they’re very boring, but we feel so content and fulfilled.

And I was raised in a family that technically had money. From the outside, it looked like we were very wealthy, but it was a very sad home. It wasn't a happy place most of the time.

There wasn't a lot of contentment there because our family was always striving for the next big thing. So now, since I've had my own home, gotten married, and combined our lives together, I'm learning to be happy with less.

Enjoying a frugal life

I also really enjoy living a frugal life. When I was working 30 hours a week, we had way more expendable cash, but I was not happy. Learn to just be content with less, even if it means getting a smaller house and cheaper cars, not booking so many holidays, and just enjoying the smaller things in life.

If you need to change your job in order to be happier, that's the joy that living a frugal life gives you. You’ll have more control over these things. You don't have to stay in a job that you don't like because your bills are massive. You can look for a job that you actually enjoy.

Living a frugal life

There are so many positives about living a frugal life, and I would really encourage you to. If you aren't happy with your life, change it. You have control. You don't have to live the life that social media tells you you must live.

Being frugal and thrifty is a choice at first, but once you get started, you’ll see just how natural this type of lifestyle becomes.

You don’t have to be frugal from the day you’re born. You can learn to cut back and prioritize your spending at any time. Share what motivates you to adopt frugality in the comments below.