As the recession drags on I have seen a very subtle shift in the types of web searches that result in visits to Frugal Dad. I’ve always thought watching search trends is a great way to gauge popular opinion – Google must have a field day watching trends considering the data they have available to them.

When the economy started to head south I noticed many people became quite proud of their frugality. Those who were once quietly going about their simple lives were suddenly very happy to share how they saved money, reduced their utilities, rejected new cars and new clothes, etc. Frugal people were suddenly very popular. Just months before, they were laughed at and mocked by those who thought frugal people were alarmists, or too conservative, or somehow less intelligent or sophisticated than wealthy people.

On the opposite extreme there were plenty of people still doing quite well, and living in a bit of denial that we were headed towards a recession. To prove their solvency to the world they continued to spend shamelessly buying fancy cars, high-end clothing and big homes. And in an instant, the roles were reversed.

Stories began appearing about people being ashamed of their affluent spending habits. Designer stores were putting purchases in non-descript bags so patrons wouldn’t stand out. No longer was it “cool” to show off a designer label, or a high-end store bag, in public. Sales at most retailers plummeted, except those stores offering extreme discounts to customers such as Wal-mart and Dollar General.

A few months into the recession the media started to slowly turn on us frugalists. Were we responsible for the lack of recovery? Were we to blame for the lack of sales, and the avoidance of debt? Many of us, myself included, refused to accept that excessive spending and running household deficits was a reflection of our patriotism. In fact, it was quite the opposite. We felt it was time for everyone to reign in the wild spending of the last several years.

As a result, some started to feel ashamed over their frugality. And that trend continues today, as many land here at Frugal Dad while searching terms related to “ashamed to be frugal.” Funny how two extremes with the same line of thinking can take vastly different approaches. At least half the “extremely frugal” people I meet proudly proclaim their thrift, eager to tell how much they paid for everything, and how much you could have saved if you asked them before buying. The other half seem almost afraid to admit they shop at the thrift store, or drive a beat up car.

I believe the struggle is compounded by the media, who often go to great lengths to project people leading a simple life as weird, or extremists, while building up the idea that everyone is rich, no one has to work, and 16 year-olds deserve $10,000 birthday parties and new cars. That is simply not reality, but it is certainly the perception of some who believe everything they see on television. And it is this perception that causes people to reject a natural tendency towards simplicity, and instead pile on as many goodies and gadgets they can while accumulating more and more debt.

So do not be ashamed to be frugal. Wear your frugality as a badge. Be proud of driving a clunker, and wearing everyday clothing, and living in a modest home.

It’s been said that necessity is the mother of all invention. Then frugality must be like a second mother!  Have you ever noticed how most frugal people are also very creative? It’s no coincidence; I believe there is a strong correlation between frugality and creativity.  There’s plenty of examples out there of frugal people finding creative solutions to life’s problems – sometimes in an effort to save money, and other times simply to extend the useful life of everyday things.

Mowing by flashlight

The idea for this post came to me Saturday night while mowing our lawn late in the evening. As it got dark, I switched on the lawn tractor’s headlight feature without success. In a matter of minutes I would soon be mowing in the dark.  With no time to investigate why the lamp wasn’t working, and little time (and money) to start looking for a replacement, I did what any frugal person would do. I duct taped an old MAGLIGHT flashlight to the hood and finished mowing.

Of course, this probably won’t be a long-term solution, although after looking up the cost of a new headlamp I’m thinking I might just live with it for a while (and start mowing earlier in the day!).

Painting the top of my van with Rustoleum auto paint

A while back I noticed the top of my old van was seriously rusted. I was less concerned with aesthetics and more concerned that it would eventually leak during heavy rains. Recognizing that it is a large vehicle, I figured having a new paint job would be expensive, so I decided to do it myself.

One Saturday morning I hand-sanded the top of the van with sandpaper fine enough for auto surfaces, but coarse enough to remove most of the rust. I then gave the van a good washing to remove any sanding residue and loose paint/rust chips.

The next morning I applied a couple coats of Rustoleum auto spray paint to the roof in an almost matching color.  It’s really more two-toned now, but not many people can see the top of a van, so it certainly doesn’t bother me. With a little elbow grease, and $20 worth of supplies I had solved most of my rust problem. At 19 years old, the chances of me having to repaint the roof during the van’s useful life are slim.

Made a “book” rest

A few weeks ago I was cleaning out my work office when I found some very old programming books.  These thousand-plus page monsters were extremely outdated and were ready to hit the recycle bin long ago. But I had a different idea.

I grabbed two of the books of equal size, and found four door wedges (those triangular things that slide under a door to hold it open), and glued two to each book, about a 1/3 of the way in on both sides.  What I had left was a gently elevated footrest for each foot that I put against the backside of my desk.

No offense to the books’ authors intended of course, but the software the books were written for stop being supported five years ago. At several inches thick they make a perfect way to elevate my feet under my office desk,and saved me from having to buy an expensive footrest. Why not extend their useful life a bit?

Naturally, these homemade solutions are not always better. There are plenty of times where it makes sense to go shopping for a new product or  service that will solve your problem. However, I applaud those who stop to think about finding a frugal, creative solution using the things they already have, rather than rushing out to a store to buy something new–adding to the clutter in their home or office.

As if it’s not enough that we’re living it, we have to listen to people talk and strategize about it – the recession has put all of us in a spin and it’s going to be some time before we can recover enough to go back to the life we were used to before. But if you think of the situation beyond the surface hardships, in a way, a recession is a great time to learn good spending and thrift habits, whether you’re an individual, a family or a business.

It’s the small and medium businesses that are hit the hardest; with not much of a cash cushion to help them ride out the storm, they have been forced to effect layoffs and salary cuts, measures that don’t win them any points with the employees that remain. One of the best ways to see off the recession is to tighten your belt and begin to live frugally, an initiative that must percolate down from the owner and manager of the business, to the most insignificant employee. You can start your cost cutting measures by:

• Reducing your electricity and water usage: Offices are infamous for leaving their lights on all throughout the day and night and for appliances and gadgets that are always on standby. This not only causes you to use more power and harm the environment, but also raises your recurring monthly expenditure significantly. Begin by asking your employees to make a conscious effort to not switch on lights during the day and to practice switching them off when they’re leaving a room for some time. Shut down computers, printers, fax machines and other appliances when they’re not being used for a long period of time or overnight. You could also save on paper by using both sides to print or by taking the email route for most of your communication needs. These are small measures indeed, but they sure go a long way in helping you save some money at the end of each month.

• Minimizing risks: It’s better to take calculated risks rather than foolhardy ones that put you in a hole of debt that is hard to climb out of. Most organizations have gone back to depending on cold, hard cash rather than leverage to do business. And even if they are borrowing money, they do so at low interest rates and pay their bills every month so that the outstanding does not keep rising.

• Keeping personal expenses separate: Just because you own the company, it does not mean that you have an unlimited expense account. You need to separate your business interests from your personal ones by spending only your salary or monthly allowance on yourself. Remember to look at the long term benefits of making your business grow rather than paying yourself more just because your expenses are too high.

• Not going overboard: And by this I mean that it’s not necessary to be penny wise and pound foolish – there are some people who try to do everything by themselves in order to cut costs. But there is a difference between being frugal and being plain stupid. When you try to do too much, especially if you’re not sure about what you’re doing, you end up making a mess of it and having to spend more than your original budget in trying to put things right.

This article was contributed by Nicole White, who writes about online web design school. She invites your questions/comments at Nicole.White222 @gmail.com.

My wife and I are still working to become debt free.  In fact, we are now within a month of paying off her car.  It will be the first time in our marriage we will be without a car payment (look for a celebratory post next month)!  While working our way through debt repayment we have found that living frugally has helped by creating more disposable income to use to pay down debt.  Let me use an example from this past weekend.

Can coupons help you get out of debt faster?

We have been members of The Grocery Game for some time now.  It is a service that lines up coupons and store deals to notify you of rock-bottom pricing deals at your favorite store(s). We diligently collect the coupon fliers from each Sunday paper and file them by date in our filing cabinet. When planning a grocery trip, we print out the latest Grocery Game  list and clip the coupons from the weekly flier.  If you sign up for The Grocery Game, I would appreciate it if you would plug my email address jason[at]frugaldad.com in the referral box – I think I’ll earn a couple free weeks if a number of you do it).

Last Friday my wife headed off to take the kids to school and planned to do a little grocery shopping on the way home.  Then she realized she forgot coupons.  Dilemma.  Return all the way home to pick up coupons, or just go on to the store since she was sitting in the parking lot when the missing coupon realization came over her.  She decided to go shopping, sans coupons.

Despite her best efforts to find store deals and generic brands, she still spent a considerably more without our coupons. Normally, this wouldn’t be that big a deal – we would simply adjust the budget a bit and write it off as a lesson learned (we should really keep our coupons in an accordion file in the car for this very reason).  However, since we are so close to paying off our car early, and set a goal to do it by June, every bit we can save goes directly towards that car loan balance.

A penny saved is a penny earned, or one you can use to pay off debt

Of course, this is just a recent illustration of something we’ve known all along. For every penny we spend it is one less penny that can be used to repay debt, or build wealth. This is easy to see when setting up a budget – an increase in one category means a decrease in the other. However, it is harder to recognize during the day-to-day grind.

We also recognize that living ultra frugal while in debt is extremely difficult, because your family is already making supreme sacrifices to get out of debt. Now you are asking them to not eat out, stay out of the movie theater, and skip the annual vacation.  Don’t be surprised if you meet resistance.

If you can manage to live a frugal lifestyle while in debt, the payoff will come when you pay off those debts.  We’ve already experienced this feeling with a couple credit card balances, and now it’s time to knock out this car loan.  Who would have thought clipping all those coupons would help us pay off our car.

What a difference a few decades makes!  In the 1980’s capitalism was on the march as many technological advances were made.  An entrepreneurial spirit spread across the country.  That carried over into the 1990’s, and went into overdrive in the mid-to-late 90’s, where there were plenty of examples of on-paper employee millionaires thanks to hot IPOs, and “irrational exuberance” in the technology sector, particularly biotech companies.

Throughout this period the idea of frugal living was but an after thought, and those who practiced it were made fun of mercilessly.  We were labeled tightwads, cheapskates, and other not-so-polite terms of fiscal endearment.  After all, people were too busy comparing their net worth to try to save a buck.

Enter the recession of 2008.  Suddenly, frugal living made a comeback.  It seemed the cover story of every major media publication featured some variation of “ways to save money” or “ways to survive the recession,” or proclaimed the reemergence of frugality.  Now (some of) those same people scrambling for bigger houses, fancier cars and higher capital gains are trying to out-do one another again by scrimping, sacrificing, and poking fun at people’s purchases.  Nothing is ever frugal enough.

Sometimes the act of scaling back is traumatic enough to a family’s finances–cutting things altogether would send them over the edge.  Take my family for instance.  Last year we decided to go one year without expanded cable television service.  I wanted to cancel completely.  My wife and kids pointed out the number of educational shows we could watch on PBS, and the poor signal reception we would get from an antennae.  We compromised, and decided to drop back to basic cable, reducing our cable bill from $46 a month to $12 a month.  We made similar compromises in other areas of our budget.  At the end of the year, we decided to resume expanded cable and cut other subscriptions and forms of entertainment.

Here lately, I’ve noticed a shift in public sentiment towards frugality, and I suspect it may be a form of frugal burnout.  When people get burned out with a trend in their own lives, they tend to resent others who they perceive to be sacrificing less than them.  Many people are made to feel guilty if they are not practicing a frugal lifestyle.  Others are so condemned for spending money that they are literally ashamed to be seen with bags from high-end stores.  Give me a break.  Have we really come to that?

First of all, frugality is not a competition.  People have different levels of tolerance for all things frugal.  Some people like air conditioning, others enjoy working on classic cars.  They choose to spend their money on things that others perceive to be frivolous.  But that is simply a personal opinion, and how you choose to spend your money says more about your personal values than your level of commitment to the frugal living movement.

Of course, many of us practice frugality for reasons besides monetary gain.  We enjoy simple living, and believe in being wise stewards of resources (natural, economic, etc.).  But what you choose to do with your money is up to you.  Bottom line:  Please don’t become a self-righteous frugalist!