Uber Frugal Month: Day 27

The weather is confused. Snow, sleet, rain, sunshine. It feels like the early days of spring, but it's too soon for that. Climate change or just a simple regional vagary? Likely a bit of both...

Ug. Today's challenge is actually the one issue I have with most "frugal" writers. I have been frugal for years out of necessity, and it's only in the last couple that we allowed lifestyle creep to rob of us our income once we clawed ourselves above the poverty line.

Today’s mantra: Life-–no matter how extravagantly you spend-–isn’t perfect, so you might as well spend a whole lot less and delight in the imperfection.

Today’s action: Identify areas in your life where you can save both time and money.

The truth is, 80% of the time frugality DOES take more time. Often, false dichotomies are made. Yes, a sandwich takes less time to make than eating at a restaurant, but that's comparing apples to oranges. More realistic -- cooking an actual meal from scratch takes more time than buying expensive premade meals and tossing them in the microwave. Even further, grocery shopping for scratch cooking and saving money takes more time then throwing premade goodies, regardless of cost, into the cart. Calling and negotiating lower bills or comparing insurance rates takes more time then just accepting price hikes.

A more realistic approach it the frugality and time concern is that we need to decide whether to save time now or later. Getting the fast meal now means I won't have as much time later because I will have to work longer to pay for it.

It's also about balance. Recognize that sometimes the cheapest option cost more in time. Sometimes, the most frugal option from both the money and time standpoint lies between the two extremes of most time-efficient and most frugal.