The Frugal Explorer

Frugal:  characterized by or reflecting economy in the expenditure of resources.

Stingy:  not generous or liberal; sparing or scant in giving or spending; meanly scanty or small.

As these definitions from Webster's Dictionary show, frugal isn't stingy. Frugal is good. Stingy is bad. Why, then, do so many high-achievers act as if frugality is a crime?

We saw the answer, or at least part of it, in the last ezine. Spending reflects a deep-seated human drive. It is a form of display by which we show the world, or at least our peer group, that we are successful, and therefore worthy of respect.

But can we safely assume that those who display wealth are wealthy? No. Trappings are in fact a lousy indicator of wealth. As Thomas Stanley and William Danko show in The Millionaire Next Door, most millionaires defy the Hollywood stereotype. They don't wear expensive shoes, they don't sport expensive watches, they don't drive expensive cars or live in expensive homes. They are, Stanley and Danko write, profiled by three words: FRUGAL FRUGAL FRUGAL.

As a career mentor, I often come across executives, doctors, lawyers and other professionals who, after years of high incomes, have all the trappings of wealth but virtually no savings. Does this matter? Well, it does if their careers have stopped fulfilling them. These are impressively talented people. They would have many great options for change - except that they and their families spend without discernment. 

A client who earns $700,000 ruled out an excellent career option when talking to me last week. "I couldn't do that," he said. "We couldn't get by on $400,000!" Oh dear.

If you want to open up your career options, give frugality a chance. It worked for the wealthy draper whose adventures William Cowper chronicled in 1782; it can work for you too:

John Gilpin kiss'd his loving wife;

     O'erjoy'd was he to find,

That, though on pleasure she was bent,

     She had a frugal mind.