How Modern Frugality Can Change Your Life For Good
What does your "dream life" look like?
Are you debt-free? Do you live in the country on a farm? What about your career? Are you working in your gifts and calling? Do you have children? Do you have enough money to live on for the rest of your life without working anymore?
In episode 45 of the Faith in Finance Podcast, I'm talking with Jen Smith from Modern Frugality and The Frugal Friends Podcast about these questions and more.
Start With Dreaming
Just before Jen got married, her fiance proudly proclaimed that he wanted to pay off debt. Jen asked, "Why?!" In her mind, paying off debt meant she would spend the best years of her life doing so. Combined, they had about $75k in debt. She said, "I wasn't really interested in paying it off because everybody had debt."
So her fiance asked her: "Well, what do you want to do for the rest of your life? Like, what do you want our lives to look like in the future?"
Jen knew she always wanted to be a foster parent. She replied, "Well, I would really like to have the capacity to invest in whatever child comes into our home-fully-without the stress of having to work or needing money. And that meant paying off debt. Fulfilling that dream meant we had to be debt-free because it was possible, but it wasn't a reality in the direction we were going."
With the dream in mind, they started paying off debt but not without some sacrifice and a few hurdles to overcome.
Debt Payoff Journey
They started paying off debt, thinking it would take about five years if Jen worked side hustles and put in the work to make things happen!
However, two months later, Jen got shingles because of all the stress brought on by working so many side hustles.
"I couldn't just add things to my life to try to pay off debt," says Jen, "I needed to strip things away. That meant figuring out what I was spending and budgeting. And what my habits were causing me to spend and what was causing me to break my budget. So that's was the beginning of my journey to being passionate about frugality."
Finding Frugality
Jen initially thought that becoming debt-free meant having to strip everything away; no lattes, no hanging out with friends, no fun. She quickly realized that to sustain this debt-free journey, she would have to go at it a different way.
"It turned out that having to strip things away really taught me about who I am as a person. My spending habits and my impulse spending tendencies really showed me what I was valuing at that time. Doing so taught me lessons about myself that could have taken decades to learn, or I may never have learned if I didn't go through this time of concentrated learning about finances and really focused financial changes."
However, Jen is an "all or nothing" kind of person. She knew that she would have to pursue frugality in the same way, so she started doing No Spend Challenges, where she would only buy necessities during set periods.
"It allowed me to pause, take a step back, and take note of every time I tried to solve a problem with money."
Pursuing Frugality
To some, frugality means cutting coupons, bouncing from store to store, finding the best grocery deals, but that's not what it means for Jen.
"I don't want to just be frugal with my money. I also want to be frugal with my time and my space because I want to have balance in all aspects of my life. My money does not rule my life."
To Jen, frugality means:
Having the space to recharge and reenergize
Not over-committing herself or doing things for too long
Taking time to evaluate your time usage periodically
Having fewer things to deter clutter
Quality over quantity
Minimalism, simplicity, gratitude, and contentment
Frugality as a Christian
I talked with Jen about how gratitude and contentment play into our lives as Christian's:
"I feel as Christ-followers, we're at a special place to be able to [practice contentment, gratitude, simplicity, etc.] more easily because we already have a deeper mission to glorify God and love others."
"With that in the back of your mind, out of that should flow contentment and gratitude. That can translate into spending less and having less, giving more, and being more present with people."
Modern Frugality as a Business
Jen's debt-free journey was part of the impetus for starting her blog Modern Frugality, but she wanted to sustain that journey.
She started writing about her journey, and a couple of friends from her church asked her to continue posting because it inspired them.
She started researching how she could make money from her blog, and it took her down the path of freelance writing. Jen's work was picked up by a larger blog, and the rest is history! She has been a personal finance freelance writer, author, and podcaster, The Frugal Friends Podcast with her friend Jill.
Pay Off Your Debt For Good
In Jen's latest book, Pay Off Your Debt for Good: 21 Days to Change Your Relationship With Money & Improve Your Spending Habits So You Can Get Out of Debt Fast, she is giving practical tips and tools to help you sustain your debt-free journey.
"It came out of a lack of literature to get you through the actual debt-free journey. There's a lot of books, podcasts, and blog posts about how to get out of debt, but actually getting out of debt takes several years, and over those several years, there are numerous setbacks that can prolong your journey, or throw you off."
"I wanted to write a book that would help people get through almost every single one of those things that could "make you fall off the wagon." So it's set up as a 21-day challenge, not necessarily 21 consecutive days, but you can read all of the days in succession and then go back and complete them, so you know what's coming."
She covers topics like:
How to get and maintain motivation
How to deal with grief and shame around money
And the idea of "minimalist frugality"; not trying to do "all the things" right when you start
"You are the worst with your finances now than you will ever be. You can have grace for yourself right now. Because you're not the best at money, you're the worst at money, but you can have motivation because yesterday you were the worst at money."