Frugal Friends Don’t Let Friends…
19 Responses to “Frugal Friends Don’t Let Friends…”
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Pretend to Be Poor
Seeking financial flexibility
Great read! I loved the title and all of the real life examples. Life is not about our preferences…
Thanks, Tiffany! There are so many more examples I could have shared. We are very blessed.
Really love your focus on community. It’s something my wife and I were intentional about the past few years but recently have fallen off the wagon. It’s something we need to make a higher priority in our lives. I helped a friend move just this past weekend and I would gladly help anyone else if they asked! I felt very blessed when a group of friends and family helped my wife and I move from our apartment to our house, and I want to extend that feeling to as many others as possible.
There is definitely a wonderful sense of camaraderie and others having your back that comes from helping or being helped. So glad you’ve prioritized this and I hope you can continue too. I can’t imagine how busy you must be right now!
We don’t particularly have frugal friends, but I will say that I have actually never paid for a babysitter in my daughter’s 4.5 years on this planet. We do not go out often (we should actually go out MUCH, much more) but we have always had friends from church who volunteered with the duties.
It’s an aside from your post, but I will say this in my comment anyway – folks, this is an awesome service you can provide for the married couples with little ones. They need that time and money is almost always tight for the parents of small children. This is also a critical time for them to stay connected and engaged with one another – they need the time together. You, as a free babysitter, are doing an awesome service for the future generations.
Preach it! Babysitters are such an important part of family life. Glad to hear you have friends willing to sit for free.
Being frugal makes it possible to befriend people across the socio-economic spectrum. I never would have thought of this on my own, but recently I suggested to our prayer group organizer that so-and-so has a way nicer house, so we should consider meeting there (instead of our house). He responded that more than half the group only comes to the group because our house isn’t intimidating to them (like they don’t feel that they need to be wealthy to meet at our house).
It hasn’t stopped us from making upgrades to the house, but I am glad that our humble (to put it nicely) house makes this type of community possible.
That’s a great point and I love the example. I think I’ve experienced this principle in small ways, too. I really like anti-status symbols like driving older cars and wearing hand-me-downs!
We are always willing to lend someone something if we don’t think we’ll need it in the immediate future. So far we haven’t generally had the item in question, but at some point, I’m sure we’ll be a help.
If we manage to have a kid, we won’t have to worry about babysitters. My in-laws live in the guest house. They’ll be thrilled to come over and spend more time with the lil ‘un.
Time will tell.
That will be perfect with your in-laws right there. Best wishes!
I have a friend and also our newly neighbor. We always give each other, like exchanging foods.
These are such great points. I totally agree with the whole concept of the sharing economy and am always happier to “pay” a friend in some way, rather than a corporation. We’ve been really fortunate to receive tons of baby and maternity hand-me-downs, which we’re incredibly grateful for and are such a good example of passing things around as we need them. Lending and sharing tools is another awesome one!
We definitely like the idea of forking over less money to corporations! Friends helping each other out is so much more enjoyable, as well as thriftier, than taking the standard consumer approach. Baby hand-me-downs are the best! There are more than enough baby products to go around with investing in lots of new things.
When I was living in a conversion van cooking was a big challenge. My friend and I made a deal where I bought groceries, she cooked, we and her husband all ate, then I got to keep the leftovers. We did that three days in a row so when I moved on I had my fridge and freezer stocked with delicious food.
Sounds like a great synergy!