Frugality and Quality of Life

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After reading a post at The Simple Dollar on quality of life and consumer spending it made me think of my own views regarding quality of life and frugality.

In the post Trent argues that consumer purchases do not increase your quality of life. I agree with that to a point. The examples in the post included going out for lunch and seeing a move. Both of these are things I regularly indulge in and I do believe they raise my quality of life.

That does not mean that my quality of life would go down if I didn’t do them though. When I go on my hike I won’t be eating out for lunch very often and will rarely be seeing a movie. I expect my quality of life will be even higher then than it is now.

The difference to me is that I will be choosing to give up those indulgences. I won’t be forced to give them up. This goes to my underlying philosophy of frugality which is that frugality is about choosing to do less expensive things not depriving yourself of things.

Keeping Track of My Time

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In order to figure out where I am wasting all of my time I am going to keep track of what I’m doing for every hour of the day this Monday through Friday.  I already know I waste a lot of time on the Internet but maybe seeing exactly how much time I’m wasting will motivate me to make better use of my time.  It is possible that I might identify some other time wasters as well.  I really need to start being more productive.

On an unrelated note I took advantage of my 10 free eBay listings and put some stuff up for sale.  Probably could have selected some better stuff to sell but since the listings were free I just listed the first 10 items I found that I no longer want. Check out my eBay auctions.

Final Semester Over Halfway Done

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I have passed the halfway point of my final semester of law school.  I wish I could say I am getting excited about getting my degree but I’m just looking forward to being done with law school.  At this point I just want it to be over with.  We did have our grad fair this week which made me feel like the end was getting somewhat closer.  I had to pay $60 to rent a cap, gown, and hood for the graduation ceremony.  I probably wouldn’t even walk but I know my mother and others are looking forward to it.  After I graduate though I’m going to start doing things more for me and less for others.

Being Frugal Doesn't Equal Being a Tightwad

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I found this article on how the recession affects frugal people interesting.  It details how some frugal people are becoming even more frugal because of the recession while others are discovering frugality.  It even had a mention of BeingFrugal.net which is a great blog on frugality.

I do object to them calling frugal people cheapskates and tightwads though.  I suppose I don’t have much room to object given that I use the name Tight Fisted Miser.  The name is meant to be tongue-in-cheek and I am not sure if the article intends their labels in the same way.  One person in the article did refer to himself as a cheapskate.  Overall though I think the headline equating tightwads and cheapskates with being frugal sends a negative message.  I see frugality as a positive, not a negative, regardless of whether there is a recession.

Ebay, Swagbucks and Twitter

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Here are a few things I want to share that don’t really justify making a separate post about so I’m putting them all in this post.

Ebay is having a seller special that allows you to pay no insertion fees March 10-23 for your first ten listings.  This might be enough to motivate me to actually list some of my stuff this weekend.  The stuff I’m selling is mostly media which would only be a five cent insertion fee anyway but since I’ve been meaning to list this stuff anyway I might as well save a few nickels. Visit the promo page for more info on the eBay promotion.

I’ve added a Swagbucks banner to the top of the site.  They are a search and win company and I’ve been pleased with my results at the site.  I’ve redeemed three $5 Amazon gift certificates and I have points worth about $25 more.  All of this just for doing searches as normal and occassionally mentioning the site here for referrals.  Click on the banner for more information or to sign up.

I’ve added a Twitter banner to my sidebar.  I’m still figuring out how to best use Twitter.  I’m thinking I’ll mostly use it to post special deals and freebies.  I also wanted to mention this post where $3 is donated to charity for each person who follows Tim Ferriss on Twitter.