Weekly round-up
Hey friends, welcome back to Frugal Chic - where financial intelligence meets luxury. Ready to build wealth together this week?
Over the past year, my income jumped from £30k at my 9-5 to over £50k as a content creator. While my spending barely changed, my mindset shifted completely. I moved from a scarcity mindset, where spending less was always better, to investing strategically in things that genuinely improve my life and business.
We often see the word "frugal" as penny-pinching, but I lean more towards it being a tool for financial mindfulness. Here are my main reasons:
1. Minimalism
I hate clutter, and having too many things makes me feel overwhelmed. When you buy something, you're not just buying the thing, you're also committing to cleaning it, maintaining it, and eventually disposing of it in a conscious way.
2. Freedom
I have goals of buying a home, retiring early, and living life on my own terms. Not buying a lot of stuff I don't need and being able to invest in assets helps me buy my freedom sooner.
3. Psychology
I realised that buying stuff will never make me "happy." Sometimes a purchase can improve my life if it's genuinely valuable, but I'm talking more about impulse purchases or keeping up with the Joneses. Once I acquired that new blush I'd been thinking about, I was already onto the next thing.
In this letter, we’ll discuss
why i’m ‘frugal’
the problem with frugal content
how to cultivate a balanced financial life
"Buy less, choose well, make it last."
Things I’ve consumed over doomscrolling
Foreign film: Woman in the Dunes, if you’re a cinephile like myself you must see this. It’s a Japanese film about an entomologist who misses the last bus home and spends the night sharing a young widow’s desert shack, only to find the next morning that he’s unable to leave.
Book: I am still reading Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi but I recently picked up The Almanack of Naval Ravikant after Nana DelRey recommended it. He is an angel investor who has made early-stage investments in companies including Uber, Twitter and he’s revered as an expert in the business space.
Podcast: Busy Blooming and The Koe Cast ofc, but if you guys have an recs drop them in the comments! I have also been trying to listen to more podcasts on politics in the UK to become more informed.
Deep dive
The Extreme Side of Frugality
But there's a side of social media that shows an extreme level of frugality, and my honest thoughts are, it’s performative. All things on social media are, but a lot of things are obviously engineered to get a reaction which makes money.
I feel in the past, as a creator, I fell into that trap of exaggerating things to get engagement. I was genuinely on a lower income so it does make sense was I was more careful with money. Now, on a much higher income I have realised that level of frugality won’t help grow wealth. You also have to increase your income and sometimes that can mean increasing your expenditure.
Honestly, I don't regret it, being frugal taught me a lot about gratitude and happiness, but now feel more abundant, I won’t be tracking my expenses on such a granular basis. I am glad we came out of it with "frugal chic."
Scarcity Mindset vs. Mindful Frugality
There's a difference between having a scarcity mindset, finding it difficult to spend money and hoarding it, and being frugal and mindful.
Signs of a scarcity mindset:
Only getting tap water at restaurants (even when you'd enjoy something else)
Not getting an Uber even when it's dangerous
Cutting back on things that are essential
Signs of mindful frugality:
Splurging on value, things you use every day, like nice cotton bedsheets
Letting your budget allow you to have fun, like having a "fun money" pot
Not turning down meaningful things like experiences, giving, or health
Overall, social media loves to put things in boxes or fit people into extremes. If you identify as frugal you are somehow immediately seen as cheap or stingy. The way I see it, the way of living gives you freedom and can take on so many different forms. Frugal doesn’t have to ‘look’ a certain way. It can be chic.