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I'm learning to be frugal by necessity. I had to retire and my husband's coal mine where he worked closed down. Now we live for one month off what one of his two-week paydays used to be.

Hard.

How right you are ... it isn't money that creates happiness. Keep up the good work!

Omg, You both are right. All we have to do Money is great but it is not going to buy us happiness.
Thanks for sharing.

Wow, I'll have to read caveman's blog. That sounds like very interesting reading. We have never bought new furniture either and the only 2 new cars that we bought back in the eighties were a big disappointment. As soon as the last payment, on five year notes was made, they started breaking down. We just came back from eating out at Sam's Club. You can get some delicious pizza slices for $1.77 and a water bottle real cheap. I need to start working on frugality because I don't know what I paid for the water bottle. Anyways, my wife and I ate for under $10 dollars and it included a 4 berry sundae. It beat the daylights out of a month ago, when we ate at an italian restaurant and paid $70 dollars. That really 'hurt' me and I dwelled on it for days! Not that I didn't have the money but it was plain old stupid! My mother would've given me a big lecture if she ever found out. I'm learning quite a bit about being frugal in here. Y'all have a good evening.

coalminerwife, Wow, that's got to be hard. Are you in a situation where you can have a garden and a few chickens? Since you're a member of this group, I'm sure you already know the savings and better health that comes from cooking from scratch. There's lots of good advice in some of the older posts here, and I hope you can take the time to peruse through them.

Any way, best of luck to you both!

MM

I spent a period of at least 7 years being altogether too close to that for comfort, as a single mom. The only thing that saved my hide was that my house was paid for. It's a whole story in itself how I wound up with the house, after paying off medical bills. Plenty of people told me to blow that money on living expenses, a decent car, whatever. No child support. I lived by raiding other people's trash and running a continuous garage sale. Sometimes I went to the food bank. Never did food stamps or LIHEAP or any of that stuff. I refused to go on disability. One time I was pretty far behind on my property taxes, Sometimes I rented out a room. I fixed my own plumbing and leaky roof. I drove mostly old Hondas as long as I could fix them myself from junk parts. I always had a garden. I had an old set of Maytag washer & dryer, & replaced belts on them myself. I bought my furniture at garage sales.

I eventually got through the really hard stuff, and now I'm retired on actual money coming in. I'm surprisingly in better shape than some people I know who always made good money, but spent it faster than they made it.

Vago--If you're buying water, you still have a ways to go before you qualify as frugal.

I think things are relative and a lot of it is attitude. On what one person can be comfortable on, another person thinks makes them poor.

Very true, eecgeorgia. To personally choose how one wants to be frugal is a lot easier than suddenly being forced to live on half, or less, the money than one is used to or had planned for.

Deprivation is relative, and different things are important to different people -- my horses and a house (old, paid for, in need of repair, but full of books) are my personal "proof" that I have the kind of life I always wanted. Other "things" are important to other people, and we each have a slightly different definition of financial security.

We also each have different "safety-nets" -- family vs alone, a paid-for-house vs an "underwater" mortgage, credit card free vs credit card debt, etc. It's unfortunate that the big corporations and financial institutions sent so many of our jobs and assets overseas, leaving the common citizen sucked dry and with so few of the resources we were counting on for our retirements.

This "Great Recession" we are now experiencing will be much easier for those who both saw it coming and cut back on "consumerism debt" early enough, and/or who had considered (or even romanticized) a hippie lifestyle when they were young. It'll also be easier for those of us who manage to stay relatively healthy. God help us if we suffer a heart attack or stroke, get cancer or are otherwise in need of expensive health care.

But, as you and many others here have said, attitude can make all the difference. After all, the consumer lifestyle with a big new car and an over-sized house full of stuff wasn't making us all that happy anyway.

Best of luck and comfort to us all.
MM

Speaking of 'attitude', I remember someone, famous and rich, said "I've been broke several times, but I've never been poor". I like the thought. Vee