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The time leading up to Halloween, Christmas, there is a greater temptation to overconsume. You see these holidays advertised in supermarkets at the drop of the first orange leaf. At Frugal Chic we’re balancing living our luxurious life filled with choice and taste with cutting out what doesn’t matter. Here’s the frugal chic approach to these autumn months.

Growing up in the early 2000s, consumerism felt like an unavoidable part of life, like it was written into the code. You got your Argos catalog and the thrill of circling what you wanted (even if you knew you probably wouldn’t get that exact thing) it was the excitement of opening presents and the novelty every time.

Coming of age in this backdrop, I went through a shopaholic phase, careless consumption - it left me feeling empty. I don’t own any of those items now.

As I went on my minimalism journey watching YouTubers like Matt D’Avella, The Minimalists and of course Marie Kondo, I found solace in owning less. The excitement of buying things dwindled as I realised it would never make me ‘happy’.

Neuroscience has a name for this, the Hedonic Treadmill; I was destined to keep buying and returning to baseline levels of happiness after I got that short dopamine boost.

So what shifted? After decluttering, setting bigger financial goals and starting to manage my money - I realised to reach my goals of maybe buying a home, retiring early, hitting a £1m net worth, my habits would have to follow suit.

Now I get excitement from seeing my investment account go up by a digit, investing in a quality item that truly changes my day-to-day like a good quality wool coat or the non-financial assets in life, like time, choice and autonomy.

Black Friday, to me, was never impressive. If there are constant sales all year - what’s the point in one day? I don’t treat this as an occasion to be celebrated. I didn’t buy anything last year, and I probably won’t buy anything this year.

I remember being at my 9-5 and each year feeling a pressure to say I bought something to fit in. I worked in luxury wholesale fashion so my colleagues would ask me what I bought, as casual as asking for what I had for lunch.

Overall, there is nothing wrong with using a sale period to buy something you wanted or make an intentional purchase plus the savvy shopper gets them on sale.

My only issue is, it’s a bit of a scam - you still aren’t winning. Retailers inflate their prices so that the discount doesn’t hurt their bottom line, sometimes designing bundles specifically for Black Friday and there’s immense fiscal planning behind the occasion - still making the consumer the target of course.

My ethos would be, if you were waiting to buy it and it’s a brand that rarely goes on sale, sure, it’s no different to another sale. My only tip would be to silence all the noise around it, unsubscribe from email marketing and instagram accounts promoting Black Friday because it will only lead to you buying things you don’t actually want.

Now if you are reading this and subscribed to Frugal Chic, we’re probably on the same page, but I do like to be critical and look at all opinions. A common judgement towards frugal chic or frugality in general is that discipline = suffering. I would say that the opposite is true.

Being in a state of overconsumption is chaos. Constant distractions emotionally and physically and not being able to reach financial goals because you’ve spent all the money on stuff you don’t need. Ending up with mountains of stuff that collects dust and can even cause inconvenience.

We often see going without something as suffering. And yes, don’t knowingly deprive yourself of anything essential. We should all be aiming for a healthy life and yes I do have to spell it out:

we should never be compromising on these things.

But people act like a decision to stop buying face masks, expensive lattes, the latest Zara ‘must have’ as deprivation is just misguided. If you are like me, you still like to splurge on things you value, but you reject the notion you should just buy things for the sake of it or constantly to treat yourself or yolo without any goals - that’s not the vibe we’re creating here.

These are the mindset shifts that actually moved the needle for me:

So that’s how we are locking in financially in a frugally chic way.

As always, thanks for being here.

Mia xx

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