happypiggybank-main_full.jpgThere it was, right on the cover of Parade magazine in my Sunday hometown newspaper. An article titled, “The Joys of Frugality.” Finally. Being thrifty is in. Me and my thrifty ways, my “waste not, want not” ways, are in vogue. At long last.

In the halcyon days of boom times past, I occasionally perceived semi-polite sniffs that being thrifty was well, boring, even dull. And horror of horrors, the ultimate indictment of the “me” generation: being thrifty was not cool and certainly not fun.

I beg to differ. Thinking does not make it so.

What is fun is whatever you define as fun. To me, thrifty has always been a game. Could I make a buck (or a paycheck) stretch farther than anyone else? Could I find the best bargain, the best deal? Make the most of the least?

I took a quiet sense of satisfaction from watching my savings grow and I invested them conservatively. Index funds and CDs were where I kept my liquidity. To me, savings and conservative investments were freedom and independence, two of my most important values. Beat the heck out of being cool or fun in my book. Or more accurately, having true economic freedom and true financial independence was my definition of cool and a lot of fun to boot.

Anything you want to start doing, find a way to make it fun, to make a game out of it. Pretty soon you’ll be surprised by how easy it is.

Closing Quote:

“So easy when I want to, so hard when I don’t.”