A couple of days ago, on a social media app I saw a post from a woman who decried that her baby shower had been so expensive and she’d spent a ton on the fancy cake and gift-bags for all the guests and now felt regret around it all. It got me thinking about the pressure to live rich and the stigma around frugality. In this blog post I’ll dive into why and how the desire for living lavish is being propagated in our society and some tips for those of us that want to swim against the tide, be frugal and be proud of it!
Scare resources, infinite wants
Everyone wants to be rich. Not everyone can be, despite what all the self-help books want to have you believe. In my first economics class, my high-school teacher wrote these words on the board: “Scarce resources, infinite wants”. “This is the basic economic problem” she said, “Economics is the study of how we allocate resources”.
“Six billion people, just imagine that. and every last one of them trying to have it all. ”
— Interstellar…and actually it’s estimated closer to 7.8 Billion people on earth as of March 2020!!
Capitalism is our chosen or default way of allocating resources across humans and as we’ve seen, it doesn’t do so at all equally. But somehow despite massive differences in resource allocation, there is an increasing growth in “champagne tastes” amongst everyone. One of the major lifestyle differences I’ve observed since moving to the US is the greater emphasis on materialism, credit and living lavish and big, versus where I grew up in the UK. It’s becoming a worldwide phenomenon though – Hollywood culture spreads fast…
The Hollywood effect and lifestyle inflation
Hollywood and Bollywood and other major world media centers have long been powerful forces in shaping people’s hopes, dreams and aspirations and glamorizing materialism. I believe this living lavish phenomenon is getting even stronger with the rise of social media. More people now see the way celebrities live on Instagram and want to emulate it. Before the days of Instagram, you had to buy a glossy magazine or watch a TV show to see how celebrities live – you had to make something of a concerted effort to be nosy. Now, it’s on your phone and Jessica Alba’s house is accessible 24-7 in highly-choreographed Instagram stories. Moreover, celebrities are experts at seeming just relatable enough to make you feel like you’re on the same plane of existence as them. “Having children is so much work”, a Hollywood actress will say to the Ellen DeGeneres crowd to a bunch of cheers and sympathetic nods from the parents. It is, BUT it really is a different ballgame when you have a personal chef that cooks all of your meals, a maid that takes care of your dishes and cleans your house, a night nurse, a physician who does house-calls, a full-time live-in nanny who stays in your guest quarters, weekly massages and spa days, a personal trainer and a personal assistant who books your brunch appointments. I’m here to tell y’all the unpopular truth friends: our lives are not comparable to the lives of these people!
Sure, many of us are doing pretty well in the grand scheme of a world where 2Bn+ people live on <$2 a day, and we should certainly feel grateful for that, but even a six-figure salary in an expensive city like San Francisco or New York does not put you anywhere near the same league as J.Lo or Miranda Kerr. And yet…it puts our aspirations in somewhat similar leagues even if our finances cannot keep up.
Observe the rise in lavish weddings, baby showers, bachelorette parties, the growing number of photoshoots that are conducted before, during and after these events, with the photos being put on social media, furthering the cycle of normalizing all this expensive behavior. Some of these events set people back from achieving arguably more important goals in their lives like buying a house or saving up for a college fund for their baby. And some of these lavish events are done with a huge amount of financial stress related to escalating credit card debt or feelings of guilt before or after the event. Why are we doing this to ourselves? And worse – why do some of us feel like we have to? As if we have no choice? As if a partner is less loved with a smaller wedding, or a baby less treasured if there’s no baby shower?
I think this is collective madness fueled by commercial interests and foolishly fanned on by peer pressure and growing social customs around the need to make a big show and tell and “eventize” and “productize” everything in life. This level of materialism is environmentally destructive and destructive for the vast majority of human souls who are being made to feel like there’s something wrong with them or that they are not “successful” enough for not being able to adhere to all these new norms like spending three months of salary on an engagement ring, which are arbitrary “norms” when you think of them from a first-principles perspective.
Step 1 to better financial health is breaking the stigma around frugality
One of my personal characteristics that I was most embarrassed about up to about a year ago was being frugal. There is so much stigma around this. I even had a session with my therapist to talk about my “problems with money” in 2019.
There is a healthy balance to most things and admittedly I did take it too far a couple of years ago – I had odd behaviors that were unnecessary for my income level like opting to walk back 25 mins in the dark to my house after a date rather than taking an Uber to save $15 (San Francisco prices!) or taking an Uber pool to get somewhere even when I was running late to save $10 instead of taking a direct Uber, or avoiding paying a Task Rabbit $35 to move 10 boxes of stuff up 3 flights of stairs and opting to do it myself (that was so painful!). Whilst frugality cost me convenience in these cases and I would definitely choose to do a few things differently now, I now also have the wisdom to realize these are far better money issues to have than to be living outside your means! I’m glad I made some corrections to my behavior but I’m also not that ashamed of it any more.
Frugality is not all bad. It can lead to you having a good amount of financial savings cushion for rainy days or emergencies. It also does not necessarily mean you are stingy or non-generous with other people – despite being frugal on my own expenses, I was donating to charities with monthly subscriptions and getting nice gifts for people for birthdays and Christmas.
For those who are trying to save more, the first step I recommend is to rethink your attitude towards frugality. Stop making it something you think of negatively or you want to hide from others. It’s very hard to be something and enjoy it if you are also fighting it and stigmatizing it in your mind. Seek out a healthy balance but then once you do, own it! Be proud of the lower environmental impact and the thoughtfulness that your way of living encompasses!
Tips on how to spend less whilst still living a fulfilling life
I’m still learning, but I want to share what I know so far on how to live with less outgoing expenditures. It’s a way of life that frees you up in many ways because you are less stressed about how you’re going to make next month’s rent, and you accumulate less junk and get to enjoy more deeply the stuff you do accumulate.
Tip #1: Consider what you can get for free for small inconveniences versus paid
For example, do YouTube workouts and yoga classes rather than paying for an Equinox membership ($200+ per month in the Bay Area!) or paid zoom classes in the age of covid. Unless fitness is your jam (in which case go for it!), there’s no need for you to be forking out tons of money on it when a walk or run outdoors is free and YouTube has thousands of free fitness videos. Sure, YouTube has ads but they’re usually not that bothersome. If they really bug you, buy a YouTube premium subscription which will give you access to more than just exercise content like music etc.
You can also get a lot of stuff for free if you have patience and can afford to wait. For example, book shelves and other furniture items are constantly being listed on Craigslist under “free stuff” as people move houses. Several of my guestroom furnishings were free street finds – I just waited to come across ones in good condition rather than rushing to IKEA ,or the Wayfair website and being ripped off there!
Please note: these tips are for people trying to save up more and looking for where to cut. These tips are not for rich people who have plenty to spare. By all means, support your local yoga studio etc. and support local artists if you have the means to do so!
Tip #2: Buy less
How much stuff do you actually need for a happy life? And how much stuff that makes a person happy is still free: sunshine, a nice sunset, nature? I’m sure capitalism will figure out a way to charge for those things too as is happening with the privatization of beaches and parks, but enjoy what you can for the next 10 years at least until they start charging to look at the sunset or making you watch an ad to “unlock” the sunset!
How do you simply buy less? A few specific pointers:
Buy less tip #A: Wait on the purchase – if it’s a genuine desire, the desire will remain. If it’s an infatuation, it’ll fade away. After watching Jennifer Aniston use a jade face-roller in “The Morning Show” I was overcome with desire to buy a face-roller. I sat on the thought for 5 weeks, even briefly discussed it with a friend who said that the cooling effect from the roller lasted for all of 5 minutes and it was a useless device that wasn’t going to have any noticeable effect on my skin, and then had the Aha that this was similar to something else I’d bought that was a total fad: a dry body-brush that I’ve had for years and use like twice a year when I guiltily remember I bought it. Wait out desires to test their depth!
Buy less tip #B: Cancel your Amazon prime membership. It’s too easy to go clicking about when you have one and ordering stuff you don’t really need
Buy less tip #C: Stop mis-using the word “invest”… I’ve seen this word used so many times to justify all types of purchases that are *not* investments. It’s another sneaky trick from capitalism to use the word “Invest” to describe purchases like yoga pants, dog carriers, mascara, work clothes, hair straighteners to make you feel like it’s got to be a wise decision to fork out on high-priced items. The dictionary definition of an investment is something that “gains profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value”. High-end mascara does not generate income for you. It’s not an investment! So get real with yourself on what is an investment and what is not. It’s ok still to buy nice things of course – they can pay non-monetary returns in terms of joy, wellbeing, etc. But be clear and real with yourself on what returns you are getting.
Tip #3: Buy secondhand
Check out my earlier blog-post: A guide to the secondhand/pre-loved life. In short, there are so many items that don’t need to be first-hand to add function and joy to your life. Use forums like Craigslist, Nextdoor, your local Facebook “Buy Nothing” group (go join this right now!), Facebook marketplace, eBay, your local yard sale and chat to neighbors and friends to get pre-loved items.
Tip #4: Don’t gift if you can’t afford it, or gift something handmade or non-material
It’s very, very hard to get gifting right – lots of well-intentioned people give gifts that are not to the taste of the recipient, who then tries to siphon them off to someone else at the next occasion – what a wasteful cycle! I have written about gifting before in this popular blog-post: Gift-giving: you can afford it, but can the earth?
Instead of gifting materials, gift something handmade, homemade food-treats, a poem, a letter, a song or your time and attention with a person – far more precious than something material! I’d like to see us as a society also moving away from the must-gift nature of festivals to gifting more thoughtfully i.e. break free of the “His-birthday-is-coming-up-and-I-can’t-think-of-anything” stress to buying something for someone when you come across it and know they will appreciate it whether it’s their birthday or not.
Bye Bye Aspirations, Hello Reality
The stigma around not being super-rich or lavish or a big spender has got to go. It’s costing us, it’s costing the earth. It’s inauthentic to pretend we don’t shop in sales, or look for bargains, or care about cost. And unless you’re rolling around in millions, it’s just foolish to not be careful with your money. You work hard to earn it, so being a bit discerning when expending it just makes sense to honor your own labor if nothing else.
Gifting has always been a stressful activity for me. I have gone out of my way picking gifts for people and stressing about the fact if they need it or will even like it.
Our daughter has made it easy for me now. She does not want anything and she told me very seriously one day, “please do not waste money because I will ask you if I need anything”. And that moment I realized we make such a big deal with gifting at every occasion. At least these millennials think differently and we need to learn from them. We all have what we want. Why waste so much energy?
Your article has validated what I have been feeling in a long time.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
So great to hear! I have a similar policy with my parents and husband too – no gifts needed for my birthday or any occasion unless I ask for something!