“Men are divided between those who are so frugal as if they were going to live forever, and those who are so spendthrift as if they were going to die the next day” (Aristotle).
To be “frugal” is to be “thrifty.” Actually, both these words come from the same root. We must be frugal if we ever hope to thrive, and in a sense, thriving can be defined as the quality of life we actually enjoy when we are frugal. The term “frugal” refers to the careful management of money, time, and other resources, and specifically denotes a person who is hard-working, thrifty, and otherwise diligent in conserving his or her means.
As Aristotle remarked, we tend to go to extremes in the matter of saving: either we become obsessed with it and make ourselves stingy, or we become careless about it and spend our resources without any conservation. When the question is whether to spend or save, balance is difficult to achieve, as with most things. But we can at least improve our balance in this area, and for that, here are two basic ideas.
(1) Economy. Frugality comes down to a question of managing the raw materials with which we have to work in life. If we are not good stewards of these resources, we will not be able to do as well with them as we should. So we need to be economical. In other words, we need to learn self-sacrifice and restraint, we need to avoid waste, and we need to practice the principles of conservation.
(2) Intelligent economy. However, no matter how good it is, economy is not the ultimate good in life, and hence we need to strive for manner economy. If we don’t do this, our frugality will actually reduce the good work we are capable of doing. Especially in matters of love, our primary concern should not be protection. Love is often excessive, and expressions of love should not be limited as if they were in limited supply. Love is so much fun to spend and be spent!
The essence of saving, then, is the wise conservation of resources. More concerned with the selfish desires of the present moment, frugality thinks about the needs of others, both now and later. Thrift’s primary objective is to do as good as he can today – and if possible, he wants to do even more good tomorrow.
“It is frugal to prepare today for tomorrow’s needs” (Aesop).
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com AreYouaChristian.com
