Frugal living is normally perceived as living cheaply, a person that doesn’t enjoy living the full life. That thought however is misplaced; the phrase frugal living doesn’t simply mean the rejection of your worldly life pleasures. Money was invented to be spent; the key is to spend it wisely. The fear of frugal living stems from the transition from one lifestyle into another usually by cutting out certain expenses. We fear change. We tend to find reasons in order not to change our habits or minimize the reasons for changing our habits. We fear changes in a sense that we fear a change in our environment that we did not grow accustomed to. So how do we overcome this fear? The first crucial step is to identify what we fear so we can tackle it head on.

Fear of Frugal Living

The most common fear of frugal living comes from the fact that we will spend less than we are accustomed to. Many would take this as the process of giving up their comforts, the things that give them joy. The key feature to frugal living is that you must identify what you need and what you want. Something that gives joy to you is not necessarily something that you need. Don’t deprive yourself too much, some rewards for you to enjoy are a good way to keep the progress moving. The only things that you must reject are things that are becoming a liability, things that you thought brings you joy while in fact drags you to financial stress.  These are expenses that you need to let go, you need to stop them immediately.

Many people get the impression that frugality is all about more work. The thing is the best frugal tactics are the ones that don’t add extra work but those that allow you to manage your time accurately. The best ones are just replacements for things you’re already doing or one-time projects that save money thereafter trimming your debts and bills to none.

There is also the perception that store brand are low in quality compared to established name brands. This often builds into us a sense that the store brand must not be very good at all. That’s not true. You have just been conditioned through marketing and advertisements that the name brand is better compared to store brand while in fact they are just selling the same product and that they function just the same. The only difference is that a store brand is much cheaper.

Don’t let fear rule you. Start making changes one step at a time. Stick with the smart ones, the ones that will clearly offer more benefits than drawbacks. Frugal living can be beneficial to everyone if you do it right.