How did my frugal mindset start?
My frugal identity comes from my upbringing and background of being an offspring of 1st generation parents who came to Canada.
Perhaps my story is not unlike others as it
started with my parents goal of securing a better life for themselves and their
children. I was often told of the struggles my parents had to go through to survive and provide for the family back home. My parents were from a generation where many things that we take for granted in many countries were simply not available. For instance, disposable diapers were not available and cloth ones had to be sewn by my mom from scratch from material. Further, garbage bags were not available so trash was thrown directly into the bin without a liner.
I watched my parents living life through their frugal vision and they coincidentally created my frugal mindset (which at times my mom finds it amusing because times are not tough like back home, but yet I feel the need to save). My mom and dads goal was not to be be in debt and instead to have savings for future goals and retirement.
My parents savings strategies(a couple of examples-more to come in future blogs)
My dad:
My father would rarely buy coffee from Starbucks, Mcdonalds or any other brands. Instead, his every day habit without fail was to invest in a regular coffee machine (nothing fancy) and make coffee. His favorite coffee was Hazelnut Crème flavor as it was the smoothest and didn't have too much of a kick, because he worked with machines as a high end furniture maker (so he couldn't afford to have shaky hands!)
Yes, this coffee takes "effort" which some people don't want to do because they have to wash the coffee maker or wait for it to be made but because the Hazelnuit coffee comes in bean format, you have to actually grind it, before putting it into the coffee maker. I understand that its difficult in the morning to prepare for work. My dad would leave himself enough time in the morning to make sure he had enough time to go to the bathroom, brush his hair, make coffee and put it into a thermos (he would make enough to last breakfast and coffee break), make his bed, make and eat breakfast. When my My mom would get up with my dad and heat up soup and put into his thermos so he has an additional meal to his regular lunch. His work day began at 7am! so he had to be up at like 5:30 with an hour of preparation and then about half hour of a drive.Also his lunch prepared by my mom the night before with the exception of soup.
Probably the cutest thing is that the co-workers would love the smell of my dads coffee and even comment at the nice smelling soup he had.
My mom:
My mother was a homemaker who raised us and gave us the head start to education by reading to us when we were little. She sewed when she could to extend the life of our clothes to further stretch the money my father earned at the beginning of our life in Canada when he wasn’t earning as high of a wage because he just got to the country.
An example of a sewing project was often my brother would tear his pants where his knees were. So, my mom would sew patches which she got from the material of old pants. Therefore, she saved money by simply not having to buy new clothes at $15-20 a pair.
Another example is my mom would make lunches for both my father and the children (3 of us altogether), and then during the day would make sure that dinner was prepared for when we came home from school and then for my father who returned much later than we did. These lunches were not pre-packed lunches everything was from scratch. My mom would buy bigger items from Coscto when it made sense (toilet paper, diswashing liquid, laundry detergent, hams,) fruits and vegetables from other specific stores where the price was right.This saving my mom and dad did didn't mean we didn't spend any money on takeout at all. For any occasions we would eat KFC, churchies ect and take it to the park and enjoy the meals there.
The savings for dinner alone are astonishing for a family of 5, depending on what restaurant can run you from $100-150 CAD, including drinks.
In conclusion, all of these habits kind of set tone for me to really appreciate
every dollar I earned, and perhaps to always be a geeky thrifty person and perhaps sometimes to go overboard but it makes me happy.
I know some people might look at me and say its so strange why don’t you just go out and splurge on yourself and not worry about money so much?
The answer is that Its in my personality not to splurge. I love to go somewhere or to go to a nice restaurant instead of spending money on manicures or pedicures, but don't get me wrong I do enjoy life we have takeout almost weekly (which is technically worse of a saving habit) but both of us do work so we have more household income coming in which provides us an opportunity to splurge once in awhile.
In addition, I enjoy knowing that I have some money to spare so that if a life emergency comes up, I can sleep reasured that I have nothing to worry about. Also any trips that I go on are all budged out and I don't even have to worry about money and just have a good time.
