I was browsing the Bargaineering Forums and came across a question from Green Panda about Ramit's new venture, The Scrooge Strategy.
I doubt I'll sign up for it — $2 or so per e-mail is a bit pricey for this kind of thing — but the selling page had some gems. He has two screenshots showing results from his “Save $1,000 in 30 Days” challenge. The right one, labeled “HOW people saved,” showed 100 comments on the program. Most were just as advertised, like “paid down CC,” “Drastic reduction in Internet shopping,” and so forth. But comment #6 jumped out at me:
Your suggestions suck and are obvious.
Ramit is a pretty good marketer — better than myself, anyway. His marketing plays into people's fond expectations that this money-saving program is The One True Savings Program that will make their lives rich and abundant, that these tips are absolutely killer. So, I can fully understand this guy's disappointment when Ramit, who “hates frugality tips,” charges out of the gate with “Pack lunches for the rest of the week.” (***yawn***)
Packing your lunch for the rest of the week will not make your life rich and abundant. Sorry to break it to you if you thought it would, but it won't. That's part of why suggestions like this might suck: by themselves they aren't a cure for all that ails you financially.
But I think more to the point is that suggestions like this are obvious, and people almost certainly have heard them before. If they haven't been doing them and are way behind on their savings goals, maybe being reminded of what they already know, and knowing that they didn't follow through, is what really sucks?
Frugality is a lifestyle, and you need to use frugality tips repeatedly, methodically, faithfully, for years. Throw some pebbles out the window and you hardly notice them when you look out. Do the same thing for ten years and you have a huge pile of them outside. You may see some results with frugality tips after a few months — maybe enough to pay off a modest credit card balance. But it's packing your lunch for your entire career that will make the big differences. Or wearing sweaters in the winter for 25 years. Or buying generic until your kids are getting married, and then continuing to buy generic because by now you can't stand the store brand anymore.
These tips are indeed painfully obvious. They're not surprising. Comparison shopping is not a secret. Buying secondhand goods is not a secret. Paying cash is not a secret. Frugality tips just don't make you want to scream, “Oh my gosh, that's freakin' BRILLIANT!” Do it, save some money, do it again, save some more money . . . that's the kind of thing they are. Predictable, unassuming, and more than a bit bland.
Frugality tips don't actually suck. Our unrealistic expectations of them just appear to make them suck.
If people really want to get serious about saving money then they should add Bathroom Bidet Sprayers to all their bathrooms. Available at http://www.bathroomsprayers.com with these you won't even need toilet paper any more, just a towel to dry off! It's cheap and can be installed without a plumber; and runs off the same water line to your toilet. You'll probably pay for it in a few months of toilet paper savings. And after using one of these you won't know how you lasted all those years with wadded up handfuls of toilet paper, nasty. Now we're talking green and helping the environment without any pain.
Hey,
I really like your article – my sentiments exactly!
What one needs to remember is that frugality is a way of life – just like a diet. If you go back to your original way of spending, your debt piles up again (just like pounds packing on when the diet is over)
Frugality tips are like working out tips; one tip alone will not make a difference but a lifestyle modifications can make a huge impact. Telling someone to cut out the late night snacking will not make them skinny but it's an excellent starting ground.
The problem with Ramit is that when started his save $1000 in 30 days series of posts there were some frugality tips that other sites have suggeted that he called retarded. This set up the expectation that his tips would be groundbreaking – in the end many of his tips weren't that groundbreaking. Another entry in that series made a snide comment about library habits of certain ethnic groups. So I don't have much time for his advice.
I've been a frugal person for the past decade and a half and while I've read plenty of frugality tips over the years, I have come to the following conclusion.
The vast majority of frugality tips don't allow for any fun. The bring lunch to work tip is one that I've been following for over a decade – the keys to making it work are that I have plenty of variety – I don't want to eat the same lunch day in, day out – and that I allow myself to buy the occassional lunch – it's good to have a break from my cooking.
If frugality tips are only about deprivation – then the fun is sucked out of life. The same applies to eating out for dinner – budget for and save money to eat out once or twice a month – that way there is some enjoyment in one's life.
It's all about finding the balance between wise money management and enjoying life.
Cheers
One of the biggest unrealistic expectations is how long it takes to improve your cash flow with the help of frugality tips.
The week when you’ve got three bills due and are trying to figure out how to arrange those bills around payday is NOT the week you join the frugal living club and expect to magically find the cash to pay the bills on time.
Well said. One of the challenges for PF bloggers is the fact that there are only so many ways you can say "live within your means." To keep these blogs interesting, you pretty much have to address larger economic and philosophical issues.
This is seriously one of the best articles on Frugality I've ever read, and explains why post after post on the subject start to become tiresome after awhile. Really, really well done, MBH.
Good post. Being pretty new to the idea of living frugally, I've been trying to read up on how to cut down my spending. Many of the tips are quite similar; there are only so many ways to cut down on expenses. Being reminded of them, and seeing how much agreement there is on how to reduce your outgo, is to be expected. There's only so many ways that most people have to save.
This is a great post … so true. Just like with dieting, you can't do it until you meet a goal, or you'll be back where you started in no time.
For Ben, I think frugality doesn't have to be about deprivation at all. I think frugality can be made into a game, or simply made into such a habit that it's second nature and doesn't hurt. With something like food, the pleasure can be in the cooking itself, or in the creativity to find ways to use scraps that might otherwise end up in the trash. For some people, second-hand shopping is a rush … finding a diamond in the rough. Just some things that attitude can help, and attitude is free!
99% of advice products, digital or otherwise, suck and are obvious. I'm reserving the 1% as a rhetorical device and because I just may come across one worth reading.
Just thumb through any of the "Success" primers (at your favorite brick and mortar store for free of course) and you will find obviousness and suckage difficult to measure.
Small wonder that your answer to why frugality tips suck … is that they don't actually suck. Thereby providing absolute proof of the true suckiness of advice columns. And to think I actually expected a good answer!
Top 10 timesaving tips:
1. Stop reading obvious useless lists of tips.
Frugality builds momentum. It is not a sprint start. Frugality helps you avoid going into debt and having to pay interest (a financial drag). It allows you to edge ahead of the curve (pay your bills, build an emergency fund, and invest…in that order). Once you start getting ahead of the curve, its easier to stay ahead. Once you fall behind (e.g. by living an unsustainably expensive lifestyle), its hard to claw back out (i.e. frugality is necessary but less effective).
I agree with Monkey. The populous will pay another or spend time listening to another on how to be wealthy, when in fact it is quite easy. Work hard, prudently, consistently, market well, start your own business, etc. The hard part is doing it.
I think that the key to successful frugality tips is that they are sustainable.
Like a good diet, it should not mean cutting out everything fun. It has to be a balance, preferably targeting areas that aren't a big priority for you.
As an example, I don't really care what I eat for lunch at work, because I eat alone. However, I'd like to be able to have fun on the weekends when I have the time to enjoy meals with my family and friends.
As for the Scrooge Strategy tips, I signed up for them, and with the first tip (about targeting your two highest areas of spending), I've been able to save about $100 in a month. Not too shabby.
Yeah, some of the tips will be obvious and painful. But the problem with frugality isn't that people don't know what they should be doing. It's that they know what they should be doing, and they still don't do it.
If Ramit can help provide a framework and the details to help enable actually do what they should, then I think the $8 is a good deal, especially if it helps you save more than that.
I can see why some people took offense at how he marketed the thirty day challenge, but in general, I don't think Ramit tries to say his is the only way. His message is that he wants to build weath while preserving lifestyle, and I think that is a unique angle.
This made me smile. Frugality tips shouldn't be the lightning bolt that wakes you from you financial slumber. They are obvious but here's the kicker. People can be pretty forgetful. It's been documented. So, if a few obvious tips lead you to make some better choices with your money then great. Doing it consistently is your insurance for stability.
Yup, frugal living tips are boring, as compared to the high-flying, credit-accumulative lifestyles.
But it works!