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StitcherIt takes both knowledge and practice to fully understand and live by what you have learned. While we always talk about frugality, we also want to teach you how to adopt a frugal mindset. Allow yourself to be curious in this episode as we break down ways to live with a frugal mindset, the barriers, and its importance in making smarter financial decisions.
Find your truth.
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What is a frugal mindset?
A frugal mindset is a perspective that holds value for all of your resources (time, energy, money, relationships, physical space, etc.) and seeks to steward those resources well. It is how we approach these resources and learn how to hold them correctly before taking action to use them that matters.
Curiosity is truly at the core of a frugal mindset—being curious enough to find ways to make more money and lower your expenses. A person with a frugal mindset sees value in what they already have, is aware of what brings them joy and what doesn’t, and ultimately has developed ways of using all of their resources wisely and intentionally.
What are the barriers to a frugal mindset?
There are plenty of barriers to having a frugal mindset. Starting from within ourselves, it could be because of our previously established pattern of behavior and our own understanding of ourselves. Sometimes we do things because they worked in the past, but ask yourself, Is it still working? It could be a belief that limits your ability to see and understand other perspectives. We may find ourselves overgeneralizing situations and disqualifying the positive—we tend to forget how gifted we truly are.
We also tend to either magnify or minimize problems, ourselves, and our decisions. For instance, we would exaggerate our mistakes and then belittle our achievements, which affected how we approached things. Seeing the radical middle of our choices strays us away from having an all-or-nothing mentality that oftentimes limits our ability to see our fullest potential.
What steps can we take?
BE CURIOUS. Allow yourself to get to know yourself and the world around you more, and discover what mindset you currently have; does it still help you? Or is it limiting you? Avoid the ‘why’ questions, as these put us on defense. Instead of asking why you shop for clothes so much, try to construct it as what it is about clothes shopping that you enjoy the most. In this way, you will begin to identify and assess how you approach the things around you, responding to your observations about yourself and repeating them to create a stronger frugal mindset.
What are the benefits?
The steps to having a frugal mindset are going to touch all aspects of our personhood—financially, relationally, time, physical space, mentally, and emotionally. We will learn how to spend based on our values, invest and connect with others that are congruent with our capacities, spend our time wisely and intentionally, and become more grateful for what we have. It is a reframe of learning more about who we are in a way that’s going to allow us to shift our actions, behaviors, and thoughts in a helpful way for ourselves as we continue to grow, morph, and learn.
What’s a limiting belief you have held? How have you interrupted this pattern of thinking?
Jill is addressing her tendency to catastrophize, where she consistently emphasizes the urgency of situations. She’s learning to create distance from these feelings and seek perspectives through talking it through with others.
Jen, on the other hand, grappled with financial scarcity and occasionally compared herself to others. She is working to pull herself out of this mindset through self-reflection and understanding her present reality.
Bill of The Week
Thank you Eve for sharing your bill about purchasing a zero-waste box to help recycle waste. AND a for days bag that you can send clothing to for recycling!
Thanks so Much for Listening!
Thanks so much for listening. Many of you know we have a newsletter called The Friendletter that goes out 3x a week where we send out freebies, saving tips, and life hacks to help you save money. We want to give a shout-out to a friend for this sweet email:
Thanks for reminding me about my values-based spending plan
I was just coming down from a shopping high, getting three pairs of activewear pants at $75 a pair, $225 total. I had reached that point where the stomach drops away, and your email arrived. I was able to pull up from the emotion, and see the facts: I have a values-based budget and spending plan, which contains a line item for refreshing activewear twice a year (Spring and Autumn), and the purchase was less than my budget had provided. Only then could I bask in the joy of getting a good deal, without the guilt of spending.
Thanks for listening!If you want freebies, saving tips, and values-based spending hacks sent to your inbox every week head to frugalfriendspodcast.com/friendletter to get the goodies! And if you already get the Friendletter, start sharing it with your friends to get more free goodies!
Keep leaving us reviews on iTunes or Stitcher, and sending the screenshot to reviews@frugalfriendspodcast.com. And don’t forget to share your favorite quote from the episode by using the hashtag #FrugalFriendsNote. 😉
