The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More

by Annie Raser-Rowland

Putting money aside to enable life to change when you want or need it to isn’t about being a financial prude. It’s about not being trapped. It allows for spontaneity on a much grander scale.

Waste also includes overeating just to ‘use something up’. Sorry.

The essential attitude change inherent in all the above suggestions is that food, by default, comes from home, and getting it from elsewhere is a deliberate indulgence, not just what happens whenever you need to eat.

The point is, economic activity is fatally flawed as the measure of human success and happiness in the first place, so let’s not shape our attitude to work around its needs.

So, the question you might want to ask yourself next time you are about to buy something (whether it’s a slotted spoon or a whole new kitchen), is not ‘Will this make my life better?’ but ‘Has my life so far been bad without this in it?’

Frugal Hedonism is partly about noticing when less might be more, and that applies to activity just as much as in the realm of consumption. If you’re too busy, don’t add a new commitment unless you can ditch a current one.

The gold class response is to change your behaviour so as to avoid or reduce the need to consume in the first place.

Your job is not to create a being who never suffers, because that’s unrealistic. It’s to create one who deals gracefully with suffering when it comes along, and gets the most out of everything in between.