Growing up in the backwoods of northeast Wisconsin on a dairy farm was the perfect way to learn frugality. The frugal strategy mostly employed was not spending on anything at all. The focus was deprivation, and that has a tendency not to work in the long run.
As part of the “never spend anything” mindset, we maintained everything. Changed the oil in cars, trucks, and tractors ourselves. By dealing with maintenance in a timely manner we saved money. This type of frugality I can understand and fully endorse.
There is another type of frugality that requires zero deprivation and puts serious money back into your pocket. I am talking about waste.
Waste
According to National Geographic, a third or more of all food produced is wasted. In general, less developed economies have more waste at the farm level and developed nations lose more in the household kitchen. Still, the same level of food waste tends to be consistent regardless where you are.
This kind of waste drives me crazy. Food inflation is not an issue if we do not waste so much. A quarter or more of your food purchases end up in the landfill. Yes, that will hit the median family’s household budget.
In a world of 8 billion people, under 800 million are undernourished. That means a bit less than 10% of people do not get enough to eat each day. And we waste a third of our food, you say?
I might be a country accountant, but I can quickly see that feeding everyone is not about producing more food. If 30% of food is wasted and 10% of people could use more food… Well, I think you can see for yourself there is plenty of food to feed everyone.
Of course, other issues are at play. Getting food to the table can be difficult is some places. But if we are going to bring up these issues I want to add that if we waste less food, food prices will decline, giving us a double whammy in our favor when it comes to the food part of the family budget. Lower cost food might even help with logistics in those hard to deliver places.
Luxury
Waste has a far narrower definition in my vocabulary. It would be a mistake to believe I consider anything beyond the basics, the bare minimum, as waste.
Throwing away $50 worth of food bothers me. Flying first class, enjoying a nice hotel, taking a long vacation, having a nice house, and more are luxuries. And luxury is not waste! Most of the time.
It is a small step from fighting food waste to frugality requiring deprivation.
Eating quality food is not waste. Living in a nice home is not waste. Driving a nice car is not waste. Buying things you will use is not waste.
Excess becomes waste when it will not be used. If you buy so much house that areas of said home are visited with the same frequency as you visit another continent, that is waste. Driving a truck around town when you never haul anything is waste. (A truck is not waste if you routinely haul stuff, especially for your job or business.) Buying clothing you never wear or only do so once or twice is waste.
The issue with luxury is that there is more room for waste. I am not against consumption; I am against needless consumption. You can’t, and shouldn’t, have everything that catches your eye. More house is not always better. A bigger car or truck is not always better.
It also needs mentioning, too small is also a bad idea because it leads to abandoning the item for something of a proper size or portion. That means the too small home/car/clothing gets wasted, tossed before it is actually used up.
Buying the right amount lasts longer. I drive a bank repo 2007 Toyota Camry. I bought the car in 2008. Good car. Right size for what I need. After 200,000+ miles the car is still going strong. No waste that I can see. And you can guess how much money I saved, meaning my wealth increased a lot by buying the “right” car.
Often times frugality is used as an excuse to judge people when they spend. Who likes judgmental people?
Before you take this frugality mindset too far, understand you might have needed the size of home you have for a long time. Now that the kids are grown and moved out, a bit less home would be nice. But that doesn’t mean you instantly sell your home and downsize. Look before you leap is good advice. First, determine if you might use the extra space in the near future. Maybe the kids return home. Maybe a parent needs to live with you due to health. Temporary excess is not waste. Transactional cost often are.
Frugal Challenge
This isn’t the first time I talked about waste and how it affects everyone.
When possible, buy products that use less packaging. Packaging is stuff you pay for, but don’t want. It all ends up in the landfill, or, if we are lucky, recycled.
It is also very possible you already have enough. How many cars can you drive? How much stuff can you stuff in your garage? And if you require a storage unit for something other than a temporary place to store stuff when moving to a new home you might want to review your spending habits. There is an excellent chance you can keep a lot of your money without any extra work.
There is an easy way to determine if you waste too much. The “Frugal Challenge” is this. Keep all waste (food, packaging, broken items, and the rest) to less than one garbage bag per week. Even better, keep your garbage under one bag every two weeks.
We can get creative with this. I still live in the boondocks on some acreage. I have chickens and cats in the house and outdoor cats.
Mrs. Accountant makes our own cat food. For the outdoor kitties it is real easy. Any food scrap suitable for cats is given to the outdoor cats. The indoor critters get a prepared mixture. (Don’t tell Mrs. Accountant, but I sometimes sneak the good stuff to the outdoor kitty clan.)
Other food scrapes go to the chickens.
The chickens give us eggs and meat. The kitties, indoor and out, pay us with love. (Outdoor kitties keep certain vermin under control.)
We also have a mulch pile. Nothing fancy. Food waste (yes, I said waste) goes in the mulch pile. Garden produce that is uneatable, along with cores, rinds, and stalks, go on the mulch pile. This provides free black soil for the garden. You can say we have our personal circle of life.
Where you live will determine how easy it is to divert waste into something productive at home. In cities it may be impossible to have a mulch bin or chickens. But you can control what you spend on. You can make a conscious effort to limit the amount of packaging. And you 100% have the ability to reduce food waste.
This is a short money lesson. The concept is simple. Reduce waste. Everyone wins when you reduce your flow of waste, most of all you.
Reaching the “Frugal Challenge” has nothing to do with deprivation. All I ask is you review what you are throwing out. Is there a way to not buy the item being disposed of? Maybe better portion sizes for meals or a freezer for when large batches of food are prepared.
All the things you did before you still get to do now under my frugality program. The only difference is you can walk around your home without tripping over stuff and the garbage basket doesn’t stink because there is so much food being tossed every day.
And when you think about it, this might be the easiest way ever to build your financial wealth.
EngineeringFIRE
Tuesday 6th of August 2024
Like you I hate food waste. I'm careful to apportion the amount of food I purchase to last me until it will go bad, usually about once a week in the summer, with some more shelf stable items in case I'm extra hungry one week. If I had to guess I maybe throw away 1% of my food, maybe less, I buy very little food without a clear plan on what it will be eaten for. But I digress. I mostly came to comment on the Frugal Challenge.
In the winter, when my house is at a lower temperature and the humidity is lower, I can get away with waiting about a week and a half to two weeks before I fill up a trash bag. In the summer however, my house is warmer and the overall humidity is higher. This leads to the trash smelling bad. While I know I'm not optomising the space in the bag this way, I've found about once a week is ideal for my situation to prevent it from starting to smell. Usually it's from packaging, such as the package that, say chicken breasts, come in. Nkt a lot I can do to minimize the existence of packaging in the food I buy more than I already do. I like the idea though and definitely appreciate the concept, I'm someone who uses my potting soil bags as trash bags and the like !after all.