Hope you all had a great July 4th! This is the last of my three introductory posts, dealing with the topic of frugality. What is frugality? I think that a little bit of etymology will get us started on the right track.
The word “frugal” comes to us from the Latin word “frugalis”, which comes from the word “frux”, meaning “profit, utility, fruit”. Let’s look at those three words individually:
- Profit – The Oxford English Dictionary gives us (as one definition), “the … gain in any transaction; the amount by which value acquired exceeds value expended; the excess of returns over the outlay of capital”. In other words, if you get out more than you put in, you’ve made a profit. This applies just as equally to money, time, and any other resource that’s not unlimited.
- Utility – Oxford again gives us a useful definition, “the fact, character, or quality of being useful or serviceable; fitness for some desirable purpose or valuable end.” A car with a flat tire is not very useful, but if you replace that tire its usefulness is restored. Utility is frequently relative. I have no need for a really nice shovel where I live, but for somebody with a large outdoor garden that shovel may be an indispensable tool.
- Fruit – I don’t think I need the dictionary for this one. People refer to the “fruits of their labor”. They refer to projects starting to “bear fruit”. Sometimes they even may refer to a particular endeavor as “fruitless”. So what’s fruit? Fruit, to put it simply, is any positive outcome of something you do. Usually this is planned, but not always – and fruit isn’t always money. You might go volunteer to serve a meal at the local soup kitchen. Feeling good later on that day is fruit. If you invest a few hundred dollars in a home gym and lose 50 pounds by using it every day, the 50 pound loss is fruit.
I actually look at all of the above as “fruit”, because “fruit” really encompasses both utility and profit. Utility and profit are, in their own ways, just different types of fruit.
That all having been said, the most useful definition (to me) for frugality is “the process of maximizing fruit.” Let’s take a time-based example.
You have 2 hours at the end of the day. You can watch TV. You can read a book about how to invest your money. You could listen to some “conversational Spanish” tapes and brush up on your language skills. You could fix a really fancy dinner for the family. There are a bunch of options.
So what’s the right thing to do? Is there a right answer? Not really. The right answer is whatever gives you the most value for the time you’re spending, and that’s highly subjective. The key is to be aware of the tradeoffs you’re making. If you spend the whole two hours cooking, you can’t read the book on investing. If you’re planning a trip to Mexico in a few weeks, those conversational Spanish tapes might trump the other options. You need to figure out which option is the best at the time, and do that.
Is this easy? Not particularly – that’s why this blog is called “Finding Frugality”, not “Found Frugality”. This isn’t the sort of thing that you read a couple blog posts (or a book) and have mastered. The key to really developing a sense of frugality, like many other things, is to start. You can learn as you go, and the things you learn along the way will make the journey that much more enjoyable!
Questions? Something I missed? Sound off in the comments. Thanks!
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