I often felt lonely growing up. Sometimes it was by choice, sometimes by consequence. Whatever the case, that aching feeling would hit me – I’d want to move, do, fix, and solve the discomfort. Isolation and loneliness prompted me to go out – to frequent places with people.
Unfortunately, people tend to congregate at locations of consumption. You can see it in families taking weekend trips to the mall to walk, eat, and shop. The window shopping and actual shopping make people feel purposeful.
When I’d be down and out, I’d find comfort in the smiling faces of store clerks and fellow shoppers. People were happy to be buying and selling products. The light shined brighter. Smells of candied nuts and pretzels wafted around. And hip music reverberated through the stores. I felt happy for a moment.
From the outside, it seemed like everyone won. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Conspicuous shopping and browsing can lead to debt, overdue bills, and lessening credit scores (not to mention great environmental harm). There’s a psychological cost to this repetitive reinforcement, as well. The visit makes us happy, and we want to return to duplicate and relive these positive feelings. The purpose is in the purchase. Without the purchase, who are we? Without the mall, where does positivity stem from?
When I first started saving money and becoming more frugal, I didn’t notice my removal from society’s consumptive catches. There was this new purpose to live within my means. That seemed to be enough. I was able to share my journey on Frugaling, too. But over time, I started to feel this lump in my throat. The social outings to spend money at restaurants, go to movies, and frequent trips were severely reduced.
That feeling of loneliness crept back in. With each effort to save, came losses in social situations. As much as I tried to build in free time with friends that was actually free, I realized that it was challenging.
We all want to consume and spend and travel and adventure. There’s excitement and energy in all these activities, but too frequently, there are direct costs associated.
We each need to establish a balance in our lives where we are spending within our means, while achieving our needed social connection with others. To sacrifice the latter may mean suffering greatly and failing to maintain long-term frugality. Suddenly, the endeavor is unintentionally punishing.
To combat and bolster our social support, connection, and integration, we must embrace congregation without consumption. These are the moments circled around a board game, watching a movie at home, cooking at home, biking, running, swimming, etc.
If frugality is a philosophy and way of life, we must define our methods for staying sane and healthy. It should never stand in the way of healthy psychological functioning and connection with others. To say “no” to social gatherings that need money is a tremendous way to save, but costs something more than dollars and cents. There’s a social factor that cuts deep – for both parties involved.
Staying connected and frugal requires proactive planning. The initiative is on you – for better and for worse – to suggest events without a price tag. We are all in this together, but someone needs to start the trend. Longer term, our society must find new homes for purpose and energy with others – something beyond the brightly lit walls of malls.
Now, the important question becomes, Where will you spend your weekend?
I deal with this by inviting people over. I might just have a friend for coffee at a time of day when a meal isn’t expected. I find that others love being invited to someone’s home rather than meeting in a restaurant. Often someone will ask if they can bring something.
Linda, you’ve got it! That’s the initiative you have to have. That way you can keep costs minimal and enjoy social company. A perfect combo!
We always prefer to eat with friends at their home or ours. At least one of you is in their comfort zone, the other gets to learn much more about them, and ultimately the food is forgettable over the time together and conversations had.
Other ways – camp together. While it does require some gear you can often borrow what you need or make a minimum of purchases than can be enjoyed over and over.
Outdoor activities are good – bikes or kayaks can have great social payoffs for the upfront investment. Years ago “progressive dinners” used to be popular at our church – string together a series of houses within biking distance and have appetizers at one, dinner at the next, and desert at the final house.
We’d like to lobby for the return of “salons’ – and we’re not talking about places to get your nails done. In years past a salon was a scheduled meeting for a discussion around a pre-determined topic. We’ve had limited success with family salons and want to get back to them.
We are a full-time RVing family – and one of the things we appreciate about this lifestyle is that other families in the same mode are open to and good at congregating without consumption.
What an inspiration! I would love to spend some serious time RVing and seeing more of this great country. Very happy to hear that you are sharing the joys of this with your family. Outdoor activities are frequently free when you live that life, and it makes you enjoy much more of the world around you. Happy that you shared this — thanks!
Absolutely! I’ve been doing a blog roundup on our site and I’ll link to this one this weekend.
And here’s the mention in our blog roundup..
Thanks so much for sharing it on your website! 🙂 Means a lot.
This is something that’s been on my mind very much lately as we are working towards saving for a sizable down payment on a home and my love for eating and drinking out has had to take a backseat to saving. I’ve stopped having so many parties too, because I always felt the need to out-do the last one, so we’ve been taking a very mindful approach to the weekends and actively talking about how we are staying in and focusing on spending time as a family. I’ve already been planning this coming weekend, since it’s a long one with the Monday holiday and even though I’ll be cooking and am planning special drinks one night, it’s actually all paid for with the weekly grocery budget money so it’s a win-win.
I can definitely relate to the desire to outdo others by having a bigger, badder party. Those can be a difficult social trap, too. But usually, you know how much you’ll spend when you initiate it yourself versus going out on the town with friends. Sounds like you’ll have an awesome Memorial Day weekend! Enjoy it!
No official plans for our weekend yet, but trying to find something fun for the family to do inexpensively. We may just stay home and have some family and friends over.
Brian, that can be great too! Heck, holidays should be about spending time with people you care about anyways. 🙂
Great topic, especially when I just turned down a friend to meet for lunch. We meet once a week (part of my entertainment budget) for lunch and already had met on Monday. I said I needed to get some things done at home and needed to pass. I live about 15 miles from town, so I plan my outings carefully, to stay on budget for gas. Living out of town does make me feel isolated, but with my job I talk to people all day long so I do get some connections with people. Back in the day before malls, people used to visit with neighbors and walk the neighborhood, but people are so much busier now, you hardly see anyone. There is also volunteer work one could do to meet people and socialize. We do make sacrifices with this lifestyle, and you have to be ok with it and do what you can with what you have.
Going to Brighton with a friend! As a teenager I often went shopping with friends, not so much because we wanted to keep up with the latest trends, but because it was a way of mapping our identities. I do have a lot of good memories from these shopping trips, trying on different clothes and giving each other advice on what looked good and what didn’t, not to mention the pretzels and the candied nuts and the coffee! Over the years we have all become more critical of consumption (and probably too old for the brightness and loudness of your average mall) and now prefer bonding over coffee or a meal at home or talking about books and films. And in doing so, we mutually make each other more aware of different aspects of frugality and sustainability (one friend got a whole number of friends to eat less to no meat, one friend started the reflection on always buying more clothes, one friend made us think about the importance of volunteering, and so on). None of us are trying to be perfect, but we try to make an effort and think before we do anything. And now, online platforms like this website add to our lives and bring up new ideas, thank you for that!
Perfect timing. Tonight is my Uncle’s birthday party at his favorite restaurant. I’m already making an exception to my budget by going and allowing myself to spend $15-$20 on dinner. Today I received a text asking for my contribution of $20 towards his gift. I’m having this internal battle that I’ve never dealt with before. On one hand I feel silly not to contribute and on the other an additional $20 is going outside of the financial boundaries I’ve set up for myself. It doesn’t help that May has been an expensive month (due to other birthdays) and I have a wedding to attend in June. And, not that this should make a huge difference, but I’ve already made him a personal card and written a poem to recite at the dinner. That was to be my little gift…not $20 towards some magnificent home weather station. Haha, I feel that I’ve vented. However I end up dealing with the situation will be fine, oh and for the record I earn $9/hr. LOL
I hate when people take it upon themselves to buy a gift for someone and they expect you to pitch in after the fact! My old workplace did that all the time.
I know very, very few people who enjoy doing things that don’t cost money. When I suggest free activities, people aren’t interested. So on the one hand I have lost friends. On the other hand, those people clearly had different values and interests than I do. It is hard at times. I spend most of my free time alone. Even meetup groups involve spending money. I keep hoping to meet people who have similar values and interests. I’m perfectly happy spending time with people in nature or at someone’s house instead of going out.
Really appreciate and relate to this post!
Great article and good for some reflective thought. I couldn’t help thinking though about my family’s summer trips from Denver to the Minn/St. Paul area years ago. The Mall of America day was just something we did on those trips. We all, as a family, tend to look differently now about our choices of where and how we spend our time and money. I won’t let go of those memories we had as a family. It’s just time to make new, meaningful and sustainable choices:)
I can really relate to this post! When I get lonely, I go and walk around the mall. But now I look at the mall like a museum. I can look at things and appreciate them without having to bring them home. Another thing I do is walk my dog in the park on Sunday mornings. Just a few people – dog walkers, runners, etc. – but a smile, a nod or a “Good morning” is enough to brighten my day.
I will be working for a few hours and going out with my fiancé to see a movie for free.
I went to Cuba recently (I’m American), and there is hardly any commerce there, let alone advertisements for it. What I saw instead of people on their phones or buying mindless goods was people sincerely interacting with each other, giving the other his or her full attention. Though technology has brought us many good things and globalism as well, it’s hard to find any activity so authentic in regards to human relationships than neighbors talking to each other with mindfulness.
Things we’ll be doing this weekend for free: having friends over for brunch, attending a Memorial Day potluck, going to church, walking the dog, riding bikes around the neighborhood, having a movie night at home, and going to book club (it’s at Panera, but I don’t buy anything). And honestly, this will be a fun-filled, social weekend! Woo hoo for social frugality!
It is very hard not spending money and still be a somewhat “normal” part of society. You have to be creative with your outings — my friends and family know I don’t spend money willy nilly, so we go for walks on local walking trails, occasionally go to lunch (cheaper than dinner prices) and we have a local theater that has Tues. $5.00 movie night where we share a big bucket of popcorn (with one free refill). It can be isolating, though, not partaking of all of the rampant consumerism.
So much of our socializing these days is centered around consumption and spending money. If I think back on the top 5 fun days of my life, the key element was not spending money on something extravagant or exotic–it was just hanging out with good friends, my wife, my family, etc. Of course there was that one night at a $1 Las Vegas blackjack table with four good buddies, but that’s another story… 🙂
I think the important thing is to prioritize what’s important to you. My wife and I set going out with friends and family into our monthly budget so we don’t feel guilty about spending that money. We don’t go out every time and have no problem saying no if we feel it’s too expensive. We’re also conscious of our spending whenever we go out so we try to limit our expense by doing things like splitting a meal or not ordering the $50 steak.
You bring up a very important observation that by removing yourself from these places of consumption we remove ourselves outside of a place to “connect.” I am now working from home but have found that my social life has slowly but surely improved as I’ve spent time focusing on it. The thing is you have to be very intentional about it. So, I go to meetups, will be participating in a kickball league, and making sure to nurture my community.
Michelle,
These are some awesome ideas! Meetups and sports leagues keep you active and social — two necessary components to maintaining the frugal life.
Keep up the great work,
Sam
Sam,
This is excellent! This past weekend was spent camping with friends in the painted hills of Eastern Oregon. I guess you could say we substituted the brightly lit wall malls with the gorgeous sunshine of the outdoors. I’m fortunate to have friendships with people who enjoy this sense of adventure that doesn’t revolve around consumptive habits at all times. Yes, we did purchase food to make on the campfire, but it did not exceed the costs of what it would be if we made all the following meals at home. We enjoyed a weekend of hiking, communication (no cell reception!), reading, fishing, discovering wildlife, history, and adventuring. It was such a refreshing and uplifting weekend. I must say it’s one of my favorite frugal activities to share with people. Thanks for the fantastic post!
Alyssa,
Really appreciate you sharing! Sounds like an awesome adventure-filled Memorial Day weekend. I’d love to see that part of the country. Can you believe it, I have never been to OR?! Must change that soon. 🙂
Sam
Spent the weekend congregating in Central Park… FOR FREE 🙂
Well done, Stefanie! That’s Frugaling approved! 😉