Even years after deciding to change we live our lives, we still ask questions about being frugal.

What is this being frugal all about? You have to agree that if you are not familiar with what exactly this frugal thing is all about you will want to know, right?

When we decided years ago to change our lives by controlling our finances, we never understood what frugal was, and we didn't have any idea where this journey was going to take us.

What we didn't think it would change us completely. During our financial journey, not only changed us financially but it changed the way we view money and the way we saw life.

Being frugal came with the territory of what we wanted for our lives. But what exactly does being frugal means to us? The fun part about our frugal life is that is our and no one else's.

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Being Frugal – What Being Frugal Is About

During our financial journey, many people didn’t understand what we were doing or why we were doing it. We went from living a “good life” to completely changing and living with less stuff. When we decided to take on our debt and take control of our finances, everything changed for us and the better.

Though the journey was far from easy, the truth is that majority of people had a perception of frugality and what being frugal is about. This perception about frugality is probably one of many reasons why their finances are not under control in my opinion.

What being frugal means to me

I define frugal as being in control of money. Am I controlling my money and money not controlling me? Is us, as a family, living life the way we want it to. Not letting money dictate us how to live our lives. We learned to tell our money where to go.

Many of us don’t realize how much money control us. Many of us don’t want to face that reality that we are the reason we are in the financial mess we are in. Making assumptions of what being frugal is it's a way of making themselves feel a bit better about others.

Being frugal is not easy.

Being frugal is not as easy as you might think. We have to change the way we live our lives. We have to discipline ourselves when it came to our finances. We live in a society where money is everything. We grew up thinking debt is OK and confusing what’s want is a need.

You can’t change the way you grew up overnight, and that made our transition involved. We have outside forces and society to tell us constantly is OK to spend. We have family members that don’t understand why we live the way we live. Constantly reminding us with looks or comments and even assumptions of how we live our lives.

But we committed to stick with it and continue on our financial path. We set out to conquer our goals and live a life where credit cards debts were a thing of the past. We decided that emergency funds and paying cash for a vehicle were what we wanted.

Becoming frugal didn't change our finances overnight.

Becoming careful didn’t change our finances overnight. It wasn’t a fad or a short term assignment. Becoming frugal took time, it took us years, it continues to evolve. Being frugal made me realized that I could achieve any goal I set for myself.

When we first started to take control of our finances, we decided to write goals. We wanted to pay our debts, we wanted to grow a healthy emergency fund, and I wanted to be a stay at home mom. The last goal was kind of hard because I was going to give up an excellent salary to remain at home with my children.

Here I am, a stay at home mom and proud of this decision. When you stick to your goals, that’s when you know you got this frugal thing right. You are working toward something. That’s what being frugal to me is about.

Being Frugal is about you!

Being frugal is about you. Is about what you do with what you have. Save what you need not what you want. Live below your means to reach your goals. You don’t spend every penny you have; you are saving. You will do this in your way because we all do this differently.

I always ask myself this question, would my family be able to survive if my husband loses his job or get injured or worst? Will my family be OK? Life is unpredictable, and that’s why we live a frugal life.

What decisions or thought you have about being frugal? What does being frugal mean to you?

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Joyce @ My Stay At Home Adventures

Latina mom of 4 married to wonderful Greek gentleman. Living in southeast PA and trying to juggle family and a household while trying to earn an income from home. Follow my stay at home journey as I discover how to earn money and save money so we can continue to live debt-free.

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