Mr. Peasant On The Low Hanging Fruit Of Frugality

Boy Scouts pick fruit for jam. Cambridgeshire, England 1944

Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Frugality is a tough sell. Nobody wants it. They prefer to keep blowing money without a second thought on the matter until circumstances force the issue. The truth is that people want to do better, but they don't want to do better today. The needed change will not come a moment sooner than too late. Then, desperation takes over which leads to very poor decision making. With money, the desperation leads the desperate turn to the usurers who are quite happy to exploit this desperation. A better way is to turn to this handy guide that generates savings immediately.

When people think about frugality and saving money, they have visions of refinancing mortgages and loans, clipping coupons, and hiring some sort of financial advisor. If that financial advisor is worth a damn, he will share the tips in this post than I am giving to you for FREE. None of these tips are sophisticated but are just plain common sense. The problem is that they all involve some form of deprivation and doing without. Frugality is more about having fortitude than brains. Here is the low hanging fruit of frugality.

1. Give up cigarettes.

Vices are expensive, and cigarettes are a very expensive vice. In my state, the average price for a pack of smokes is $8.50. Assuming you smoke a pack a day, that amounts to $255 per month. The price is even higher in other states. New York State is the most expensive at $14.55 per pack which amounts to $436.50 per month. People can argue and bicker over this "injustice," but assuming you are in the right, it is still going to cost you a lot of money. Many people could solve their money woes just by giving up this one vice. Just cutting back on the smokes will generate hefty savings. I won't get into the savings on healthcare expenses. That is in the realm of high hanging fruit.

A girl drinking wine and a boy smoking a cigar, 1893 Albert Roosenboom

2. Give up booze.

After tobacco, alcohol is the next most expensive vice for many people. On a unit price, a can of Budweiser beer will cost a little over a dollar in my state. Wine and spirits are obviously more expensive than beer. The real expense is a drunk driving conviction and the need for a liver transplant, but that also gets into the high hanging fruit. On a single serving basis, one beer is not so expensive. But who drinks one beer? People like to get hammered, and this costs money. I don't know of anyone who gave up the booze who was not better off for it.

3. Give up gambling.

A single ticket for the lotto is not so bad, but many people are addicted to those scratch off lottery tickets. You don't need to go to Vegas or Atlantic City to become a gambling addict. Your local convenience store is now a casino. I have heard of people blowing their entire paychecks on these scratch off tickets.

4. Give up Starbucks.

I don't consider coffee to be a vice, but Starbucks has made coffee cost as much as a vice with a single venti serving of java costing as much as a pack of smokes. There are people who drink Starbucks daily, so their caffeine habit becomes as expensive as any nicotine habit. Fortunately, the answer is to get cheaper coffee at Dunkin', McDonald's, or the Waffle House. Brewing your own at home is even better. I would recommend investing in a good travel mug or a Stanley thermos for taking hot coffee with you on the go. Personally, I think Starbucks is a scam. Anyone who goes there on a daily basis is an idiot.

Elderly couple eating at their home on Lamont Street N.W. Washington DC, 1942

5. Give up fast food, convenience store meals, and microwave meals.

Paying for food you didn't make yourself is a massive expense. You're paying someone to make it for you, but it isn't cheap. Buy your ingredients and make your own food even if it is just a sandwich. People will claim they don't have the time for this, but this is utter horse crap. It takes me less time to make my own sandwich than to watch someone else make it for me at Subway and then pay them for the convenience. Microwave meals are essentially fast food that you make at home.

6. Give up soda pop.

Soda pop is sugar water, but a can of the stuff will cost you a dollar now. You can probably save a bit more by getting a generic store brand in the 2 liter bottle. Mrs. Peasant does this with her once a week purchase of diet soda. She only buys one per week for a treat with her Chef Boyardee Pizza on Sunday.

At this point, the Gentle Reader is howling in indignation and despair because Mr. Peasant is removing all of the joy and pleasure from life. My defense is that I think you can have the same level of joy and pleasure but at a fraction of the price.

I don't drink soda pop except on the rarest of occasions. I prefer to drink tap water. I put a splash of cranberry juice or muscadine juice in it for health benefits, but I stick to water and coffee. I don't do booze or soda pop. I don't feel deprived at all, and there is something to be said for being properly hydrated.

7. Give up cable, satellite, and streaming subscriptions.

I don't expect people to give up entertainment, but I do expect people to stop paying so much for it. I cut the cord on cable a long time ago, and I stopped paying for Netflix when they were still delivering the DVDs by snail mail. I recommend watching over the air television on an antenna while you can still get it for free. I also recommend watching free streaming services like Tubi and Pluto and the free content on YouTube. I don't watch very much visual content, so my entertainment comes from reading used books and listening to the radio on my 20-year-old Sony Walkman. (Sports fans will be happy to know that they can cancel the football package and listen to all their favorite games on the radio for FREE.)

8. Adjust your thermostat.

This is a Mrs. Peasant tip. She sets the thermostat at 78 degrees in the summer, and 58 degrees in the winter. If this sounds extreme, this is where the electric company recommends you set your thermostat. You can set it higher or lower if you're not going to be home during the day because of your job and whatnot. I am used to the summer setting because I am a lizard and prefer to be acclimated to warm weather. In the winter, I break out my house hoodie that I wear exclusively around the home. It is almost 20 years old now and still does the job.

Couple in a Train Compartment, 1895. Ricardo López Cabrera

9. Give up expensive travel and entertainment.

There is a certain type of person who cannot enjoy life at home. They have to go out on the town each weekend and spend two weeks of vacation each year on an exotic cruise or relaxing at a resort. I don't know how anyone can relax if they are living paycheck to paycheck and can't make ends meet. When Mrs. Peasant needs to get out of the house, she goes to the thrift store or to the garden center. In the past, we have been to parks, libraries, museums, the zoo, and kitschy roadside attractions. They have all been fun and done on the cheap. Otherwise, our life is a staycation. Home is a sweet place to be.

10. Give up that flagship smartphone.

The Peasants use durable flip phones that last longer than the cellphone networks. These phones are not cheap but don't cost anything close to the $1000 plus flagship smartphones that people buy every two years. Sometimes, they drop the smartphone and break the screen. This is why they pay insurance on these things like you would with an automobile. This is crazy.

Charles of France, Duke of Berry. 1701- 1725. Nicolas de Largillière

11. Give up fashion.

I gave up fashion in high school and wear work clothes and boots until they disintegrate. Fashion by its nature is short term and expensive. The expectation is that you will change your entire wardrobe twice a year in spring and fall. I don't even change my wardrobe twice a decade. I recommend establishing a uniform for yourself like Steve Jobs did and wearing that gear for as long as it lasts. The interesting thing you will note is that no one is paying attention to what you are wearing. You have to wonder why you are dressing to impress people who don't care except for their own clothes that they are wearing.

Conclusion

As I said, frugality is a tough sell. These tips are falling on deaf ears, and I am OK with that. Just stop whining at how hard your life is and how you are up against it. The reality is that your lifestyle is a choice, and choices come with consequences. I find the consequences of frugality to be easier to bear than the consequences of being a spendthrift. If you are a spendthrift, do us a favor and suck on it as hard as you can. Your misery is free comedy and entertainment for the rest of us who know better. (Listen to The Ramsey Show for some of that free entertainment.)

I don't feel sorry for the grasshoppers in life. No one is up against it. The thing that the person earning $40K a year has in common with someone earning $240K a year is they both have no savings and live paycheck to paycheck. Where does it all go? Most of it goes to the things I just wrote about. I think the average person can save at least $1000 a month just with the low hanging fruit. That amounts to $12K per year.

The high hanging fruit of frugality involves living in a modest home and buying used vehicles while eschewing high price toys like a motorcycle or a boat. The irony is that many people could afford the payments on these large purchases just by going for the low hanging fruit of frugality. Personally, I recommend going for all of the fruit of frugality. The low hanging fruit is for those folks already in trouble and need to generate savings today. This is when they hear the repo man coming down the street to take back their stuff. But that is a topic for another post.

Thank you for reading!