Dear Mary: I wanted to tell you the secret of sticking to a budget on our family vacation — something we’ve had a hard time achieving in the past. This year, we let our teenage daughter plan the vacation. Seems too simple. We told her the amount we had to spend beyond the cost of overnight accommodations. We told her she could spend the money any way she wanted. We could eat out every night or cook dinner in our kitchenette. She could spend it all on the boardwalk. My spendthrift daughter became Ms. Frugality. She wanted to parasail. So she had us eat every single meal in the room and spent less than $20 at the Boardwalk. We parasailed and had the best time ever. We came home with cash in our pockets. Best of all, we are enjoying the priceless accomplishment of teaching our child the value of money. — Madeline Dear Madeline: Wow, way to go! What a great idea, and I am so proud of your sweet daughter for accepting the challenge of such a big task. I’m going to predict that this event will stay with her for a lifetime and will begin to shape her money life. Never again will she think you have unlimited sources of money. She’s experienced how making good choices with a limited amount of money can result in positive outcomes. You gave her the opportunity to make her own independent financial decisions, and she scored. Please give her my heartfelt congratulations and a big frugal high five!
Frugality. It’s a word that, for many people, screams deprivation and even poverty. I get letters from readers who say they’ve had it with trying to live below their means and never having anything they love. “What’s the point if all of this deprivation if it just makes me feel even more miserable?” was the way one woman closed her letter.
Some people think the word cheapskate is an insult. Not me. I enjoy being called a cheapskate. It reminds me that I’m not what I used to be: a credit-card junkie. There was a time I used plastic to fill the gap between my pathetic income and the life I so rightly deserved.
Rise to the occasion in the coming solar cycle. Put your best foot forward and be ready to dive into anything with courage and determination. Challenges will provide you with opportunities to thrive and improve. Hard work will bring you fabulous rewards.
I’ll admit I used to think frugality was a distasteful lifestyle forced upon the poor. I believed “frugal” was synonymous with never buying new clothes and dumpster diving under the cover of night. Boy, did I have a lot to learn. And learn I did — and continue to learn — that the frugal lifestyle is the path to building wealth on any income.
