Living within our means

I'm a little behind times with plans for the 'Thrifty/Frugal February' posts I mentioned at the end of January, but although there may not have been anything actually written here, I have been giving the subject a lot of thought.  I  suspect there are many different takes on thriftiness and frugality, so I am just focussing on how we see it.

I think you start with a mindset.  For us, it's living within our means.  We are perfectly happy with this view, it suits us just fine.  'Our means' is the Head Chef's work pension, plus a small monthly contribution from my savings (no pension for me as yet!).  This total figure is less than a quarter of what we used to jointly earn when we were in paid employment.  However, we have not had a mortgage for several years, and have no debt.  This money covers, I would calculate, 95% of all our expenditure - household expenditure, food, car expenses, garden, travelling, and much more besides.  (There are a couple of exceptions  that are paid for from separate accounts).  We live very well on what many people would consider a relatively small income.  We don't  consciously try to be thrifty or frugal (whatever those terms may mean), but we do try to make the money work as hard for us as possible.  We don't waste it, and try to use it mindfully.  Our attitude is that we have worked hard for what we have so we don't want to waste our resources.  And we have found that we can live very well indeed.

I had planned to post throughout February on thrifty and frugal topics, but I have been in the midst of a sewing frenzy, the like of which I've not known before; I don't think I have done so much dressmaking for such a concerted length of time for many years, if ever.  It has been enjoyable (in a ' there's so much to do and I'm running out of time' way, lol!) and it is mighty satisfying 1) seeing the end results of all this time and effort, and 2) the money I have saved in the process, but there has been a downside, namely a very sore neck of the repetitive strain variety which has, on occasions, rendered me unable to move my head.  Not so great.   So whilst I may not have blogged much over the past couple of weeks, I have had plenty of time to ponder our lifestyle.  

We live simply.  If that means we are thrifty and frugal, I can run with that.  But mostly, we have simply simplified how we live.  We are fortunate to have what we need, and what we have is more than enough.  

I see evidence all around us of this simple life - homemade laundry liquid, menu plans, meals cooked from scratch, broken zips replaced, home-grown vegetables in the freezer providing us with food through the winter, supermarket 'own brand'  products in the cupboards - the list goes on.  It allows us to live well on a reduced income, happy and content with our lot.  We may be at odds with mainstream aspirations of 'more, more, more', but for us, less is so much better.