Frugality is a relative term and not absolute. What is needed in today’s world is modesty. As we all know consumerism and marketing has taken over everything, this is further leading everyone to imitate the lifestyles of others, without considering their own available resources. As long as we don’t imitate others, frugal living is always attainable with modesty.
Yes, we can save a lot without compromising our lifestyle by budgeting everything. This is a mind game and we have to train our mind and family to behave rationally and with prudence. As far as the UAE is concerned, major expenses for everyone is rent, school fees, car installments, weekend getaways and eating out. Due to imitating others, we unnecessarily burden ourselves with additional expenses. Even though the same is not required, we try to acquire the habits of others. We try to re-engineer ourselves with others. From personal experience I can advise that we can save 30 to 40 per cent more just by realigning without compromising lifestyle.
Firstly, most of us use accommodations that are much bigger than actually required. We can change the same by selecting the right accommodations based on our family size and actual needs. Just moving from a villa to an apartment will save us a good amount of money on rent and utility bills.
Secondly, the same applies for the cars we drive. We can have the right car based on the family size. Just moving from a an SUV to a sedan will save a lot on installments as well as on fuel and maintenance expenses. Further, if we change the brand or model, we can save even more.
Thirdly, instead of eating out all weekend, we can cook healthy foods in the house on alternate weekends and treasure our family time together with additional health benefits.
Lastly, the most important aspect is to save a specific fixed amount each month and further improvise the same by saving every day by cutting some unnecessary expenditures from the daily routine by putting the same in a piggy bank maintained in house. These small drops will certainly build an ocean in the long run.
- The reader is a chartered accountant based in Dubai.
