Our Theories on Living a Frugal Lifestyle
and Links to Our Friends

Frugal-Folks-Life is our eMail List that feeds this website. Everyone is welcome to join and chat about frugality and life in general...    - Uncle Bridge

Page Contents

• Introduction to this Frugal Library  

• Our Theory of Frugality  

• Special Links to Our Members Sites   

This Frugal Library is part of the Frugal-Folks-Life eList on Yahoo Groups. The List started in July, 1999 as "A Frugal Life" and was changed to correspond to the emerging website developed to provide a better archive for material submitted by the list members. The material archived here relates to a Frugal and Successful Life. Being able to manage these important areas of our lives, we will be able to design a plan to enrich our lives. 

I am also collecting a huge commercial collection (over 400 eBooks and programs) that will be available soon to all of you for a fraction of its real cost. 

Our Theory of Frugality

The struggle to be frugal is, for most folks, daunting. It goes against the grain of thought that to be successful we must spend to look successful. But the real secret to becoming wealthy and secure is to save your income and live below your means. 

As the famous internet marketer Mark Joyner recently said, 
"We are set up to fail.
We work our job until we are exhausted.
Then, we go home and watch TV.
TV tells us to eat unhealthy food.
TV tells us that to be happy, we must buy tons of crap.
We get into debt to buy that useless crap.
We make minimum payments on our debt and the debt gets bigger and bigger.
We become slaves to work because we are in debt.
A slave job with a combination of unhealthy food leaves us with zero energy at the end of the day.
We go home after a day's work and watch Television.
And the cycle goes on and on."

Becoming frugal isn't getting a tips book and becoming stingy. Most millionaires in this country are unknown. They're your next door neighbors. Apparently everyday people. In the highly successful book, The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealth, by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. and William D. Danko, Ph.D. where they discuss the seven factors of success that the true wealthy employ. 

1. They live well below their means (that means every time money comes in a portion is set aside)

2. They allocate their time, energy, and money efficiently, in ways conducive to building wealth. 

3. They believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status. (This is a key factor to the concept of frugality. Don't try to keep up with the Joneses)

4. Their parents did not provide economic outpatient care.

5. Their adult children are economically self-sufficient.

6. They are proficient at targeting market opportunities.

7. They chose the right occupation.

If you want to learn the basis of this philosophy, I suggest you read this very informative book.

However, we are going to concentrate on the concept of being frugal. We will look at the first three factors and especially the third factor. 

The idea of being frugal for many is a life of miserly drudge. They don't want to deprive themselves of the pleasures of baubles and toys that are offered everyday. If they had to project a budget and follow it, it would be as if they were being a slave to their life. After all isn't the money you work for supposed to be spent on your physical pleasure? Marketing experts sure hope so. 

But the truly frugal enjoy the idea of being secure and yet being able to purchase the necessities of life. Most of what we purchase becomes a deficit and produces no monetary gain. It only dwindles in value. The frugal person looks to invest his money to make it earn more money for him. That is where the frugal tips come in. Such as, instead of buying a new car, you would learn how to buy a slightly used and older car that has better features. You save a major loss of value and still have a better vehicle. 

Instead of buying cheap junk food, you might grow a vegetable garden to supplement your family's diet. Gardens can be grown anywhere, even on a small patio. There are vegetables available that are designed to grow in small areas in a container. Yet, they produce almost as much as the regular sized plants.

When someone starts out to make a life change especially after years of poor habits, learning to be frugal is a real hassle and many give up. But take it in small steps. Too many people today want to be frugal instantly, they aren't willing to wait it out. 

And the temptations to spend are every where trying to keep you from being frugal. There are people that make fortunes getting you to spend your hard earned income. Millions upon millions are spent yearly teaching you how to blindly spend all your money.

This Frugal-Folks-Life group was formed to help each of us learn how to be frugal and not feel deprived when we don't spend our money on things that only make our debt higher. Our goal is to discover how to realize what is a true value and what is not. Being frugal can be fun especially when you discover the power having money for true necessities. We don't have to spend beyond our means to provide for our family. 

Frugality is mind set and develops habits that are powerful. Most of us have developed habits that crush our ability to save. Changing them will be the hardest part of changing your life. But once you have the rewards being frugal will give you new life. We will become successful not because we have to but because we want to.

Special Links To Our Members' Sites

You will find links to other sites on the various subject pages. We look for sites that are relevant to our members. We will link to sites that are useful to our members even if they don't link back to us. If you know of any links we need to post, please let us know

Here we have links from some of our members. If you would like us to post a link to your website email us with the link and your email address you use as a member. 

• Theresa "TNT", our list co-owner has three links

  • http://www.onepersonsjourney.com  

  • http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SaveAtHomeMommies  This is a list for women only. I don't know what they discuss but I bet it's similar to our list.

  • http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/FrugalWeightLoss/ Are you tired of everyone telling you that you have to spend money to lose weight!! This group is for those of us who need to lose weight and do not have the money to spend on extras. This list is growing fast and offers a lot of support and information.
      

• Mary Hurd sells a frugal product that is great. She sells stoves that heat by burning dried corn. Visit her site at http://www.cornstove.info 

• Deborah Wiggins publishes Life On A Dime eZine subscriptions@knowledgeinprint.com and publishes Frugal eBooks at http://www.knowledgeinprint.com, home of the 'On A Dime' eGuide Series

• Terri Cheney, one of our members has a very informative weekly newsletter that I'm proud to recommend to you all. It is: PennyAnnPoundWise-subscribe@yahoogroups.com  

• Terry Rigg, known to our members as "Grandpa Terry" has a newsletter named The Budget Stretcher Newsletter which you can subscribe at his website. He also has excellent budget training: http://www.homemoneyhelp.com 

• Check out Amy Clark's excellent website: http: http://www.momadvice.com 
  She also offers a very good newsletter for free

• Sheila has lots of Teddy Bears that need nice homes. http://www.averybearyteddyvillage.com/  

• Jamie's label page http://www.geocities.com/marcsbabe25/   Want Labels 
  e-mail me for pricing. These are just some cute designs I have. I have tons  more.  

•  Jennifer Tarver features one of the best soaps I've ever used. The bottle was $20 but I have hardly used any of it. I get tremendous suds with only a few drops. We have hard water too. I am very impressed with it.  www.miracle2store.com  

• Ellen in VT offers affordable Handmade Beaded Jewelry
  http://moonlight-creations-jewelry.com  

• MaryAnn has a blog that defies me to categorize it except to say it touches the social currents of today. I find it entertaining
  http://maryannaville.blogspot.com

Giving credit where credit is due. 

This is one of the best BLOG sites on frugality I've found: Wenchypoo's Warehouse of Frugal Wisdom  http://wenchwisdom.blogspot.com/  

She also writes for Stretcher.com  http://www.stretcher.com/blogs/toh.cfm   
Check her out she's a hoot!

If you can't find what you're looking for on this site then go look at this site it's one of the best on the net.  http://www.make-stuff.com/ 

If you are a member you can have your link here. Just Contact Me Now

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