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

by Annie Raser-Rowland

It is easy to use spending money as mental confirmation that something of value is being obtained.

Spontaneity is a glorious quality, but manifesting it by reliably blowing every cent you have on whatever catches your eye is not its most stellar manifestation.

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.

‘Recalibrate’ is an incredibly useful word for the Frugal Hedonist, particularly because all of us have at one time or another experienced shifts in what we perceive as pleasurable.

The element of restriction in such scenarios undoubtedly boosts their ‘reset-effect’. Adopting a consumption rhythm of lean-lavish-lean certainly intensifies pleasure. But it is not restriction that lies at the heart of this effect. It is contrast. And there is no reason why the activities that provide that contrast can’t be enjoyable in themselves.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Charlie Parker, “Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget all that shit and just play.”

Craving novelty or stimulation? Don’t go buy another shirt or scan the papers for a new café to try. Instead, learn the name of three plants in your garden and what their Latin names mean. Use the internet to teach yourself a dance move. Read something by a writer you’ve always meant to get acquainted with. Take a free tour of a public building. Ask an eloquent friend to tell you about their childhood. Look up five uses for sour milk apart from the one listed in tip “5. Hate waste” of this book. Go to the library and find out the history of your suburb, street, or maybe even the past residents of your own home. Take a photo of the night sky every night for a fortnight, and see how it changes. Draw a picture of your cat… using your toes.

Indulging your curiosity isn’t only a less expensive way of getting that ‘Getting Feeling’, it is deep hedonism. As your understandings amass, you begin to sense the world around you as a dense and majestic cathedral of thrumming, interconnected functions and stories.

Converting your thoughts or discoveries into something tellable not only entertains and enriches your audience, but it clarifies and cements them for you, the teller, too. You’re forced to do a little ordering of the information in your head, noting its most crucial and captivating details. You might spot a few missing links that you’d like to fill in, or even a revelation you’ve come to. The whole process is an art well worth cultivating.

Doing a long distance bike trip, eating a whole habanero chilli, experimenting with barefoot running, or going to midnight mass, all because you’re curious what those things are like. Studies repeatedly indicate that experiences deliver more and longer lasting happiness than things do.

Data indicates that households with higher work hours have higher carbon footprints. Being time-stressed makes people behave in more carbon intensive ways (travelling faster, eating out more, doing more ‘convenience’ shopping). Countries with higher work hours have higher carbon footprints too – because of the time-stressed households that comprise them, and because more economic activity demands more resource use.

And then, of course, there is The Economy. That heffalump is perhaps the most oft-cited reason for why we need to keep ‘creating jobs’, working them, and shopping – whether or not there is work that needs to be done or things we need to buy. The problem here is that The Economy requests the absurd: endless growth on a planet of finite resources.

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?’

just the act of asking yourself the second question can make you feel happier, as you notice with shock how well-off you really are!

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. If you’re already loving life, check whether saying yes to another appealing project could steal important time from some less visible aspects of your world. It’s as much about the spaces between things as it is about the things themselves, man…

let some of those quirks and eccentricities that you may have been suppressing blossom into visible traits. People love to gossip, so give them that gift by being worthy of it!

while work in Reghin did occupy most of the day, it was not only diverse, but so chock-full of wheeling, dealing and problem solving that it felt more like bouts of vigorous exercise interspersed with gregarious socialising.

By not using money as the automatic solution to a need, we’re compelled to depend on other humans, leading by default to a diversity of experiences. We are also incited to be both sociable humans, and fair humans, because to not look after our connections by being dependable and generous would leave us with a deficit of the social credit needed to get help from those around us.

People who step outside the box may risk being considered weird, but what if it’s the whole damn culture that’s gone deranged?

There is nothing more boring and irritating than feeling hedged into convention by these circumstances, so why not just not be?

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Frugal Hedonist is rather permissive when defining ‘travel’. Your authors think that travel is ultimately about creating a contrast with everyday life, thereby refreshing your mind and making time seem more spacious.