Frugality is Trending #frugallifestyle #trending

Hi everybody, welcome back to the channel and if you're here for the very first time, welcome! I'm Jane and my husband Mike does everything behind the camera. We're British early retirees, we have no debt, we've paid off the mortgage and we live a thrifty, frugal and money-saving life in Brittany in North West France. And every Sunday we bring to you an aspect of our private life and today I'm going to share with you things that I've been looking at on the internet, things that have really brought me some joy, about the fact that out there, right now, frugality is trending. Whenever there is a financial crisis and people are put into the position where they have to survive it, they have to be those economic Robinson Crusoe's who've been thrown on this economic desert island and they have to survive. They do. Very few people turn up and just say no, I can't do it. They find a way and lots and lots of younger people, and I'm talking of somebody here who's just about to go around the Sun for her 60th time, I'm talking about those people under 50, under 40s, in their 40s and in their 30s, experiencing economic times maybe for the first time ever. And they are finding ways, they're finding their ways to budget, they're finding ways to cook, they're finding ways to bring up their families, they're finding ways to house themselves. It is absolutely fantastic to see these people out there showing that there is an opposite way to the over-consumption, the conspicuous consumption, the overspending and the over-buying. And I love it. In previous years we've looked at that trend of loud budgeting, of people saying I am living on a budget, I'm not afraid to say to you what I can and cannot afford to do, to buy, to have, to live in, to wear. I'm going to be open about it. I don't want to use debt, I don't want to buy things I can't afford, I want to live within my means and talk about it openly and loud budgeting. And now, out there, and the mainstream media is picking up on this as well, is this fantastic trend that is out there that's all about frugality that we're going to talk about today and that is under-consumption core. I'm loving the whole under-consumption core thing. When I look at it, it's like looking in the mirror and a much younger woman or younger man is looking back at me. I love to see what they're doing. They're out there saying I don't have an aesthetically pleasing house, everything in my house is secondhand. I live in a sort of cooperative environment, I live with a bunch of sort of five other guys or five other girls and we're all living in the same house or we're four couples living in one house or we're really trying to make it work that I buy everything secondhand, that we ride on the bus, that we use bicycles, that we lift share with each other or I've had the same car that I've had since I was 18 years old. And I'm really loving this, that they're embracing frugality as if it's something new and to them it is. And I watch these guys, these ladies and gentlemen, without a hint of cynicism or criticism and I am loving it. I love to see people finding creative ways to work their ways through this. Let's go into this in a bit more detail. For me, watching these people younger than me, it's like looking back and watching my parents. It's like being the kid again, watching my parents being Tom and Mara Barbara Good from The Good Life, growing their own vegetables, keeping chickens, knitting, sewing, making things, mending things, fixing the house, going fishing, learning how to smoke fish, learning how to preserve food, doing all of these things as a matter of absolute survival. Finding fun in it, finding solidarity with other people who were doing it, finding their own tribe, finding their own community and finding those ways of being thrifty and frugal and making it work. So, what are they sharing? They are sharing the fact that they've got a very small wardrobe of clothes, that they really don't want to buy into fast fashion, that they really don't want to buy into consumerism. They will show things, for example, like they've got one lipstick, they've got one mascara, they've got one hairbrush, they've got two pairs of jeans, they've got three t-shirts, that they've got four sets of underwear, that they really do pare this down in a very minimalist way and saying, look, I'm going to do the opposite of all of that out there. I'm going to be the counterbalance of all those people showing their Sephora hauls and their clothing hauls and we are going to be the opposite of that. They're literally showing the fact that their house, the only things they've got in their house, the furniture-wise, they've picked it up on a curbside pickup. They're showing clothes that they've passed around and passed down and that their children wear, hand-down clothes. They're showing the fact that they are not buying their children much for Christmas, for example, and they're showing not the fact that they are living in poverty, but they're showing the fact that they are making an average income work by literally throwing away everything that society's told us to do about over-consumption. So they're proudly cooking at home, they are proudly making their own coffee, they're proudly fixing their clothes and showing this, they're proudly showing their little backyard homesteads, they're really proudly showing the fact that, you know, this bicycle, I've had this bicycle, this bicycle gets me everywhere or I ride the bus or we lift share as a community or we've got a car between four families and we carpool. Literally, who's got the car? And it is absolutely superb and it's, and I find it really, really, really refreshing. And I, will this trend go further? I think it will go to a certain point. There will be lots of people who will go like, no way Jose, that's not for me. I'd rather be in debt, I'd rather have a massive mortgage, I would rather have ridiculous amounts of rent to pay and I would rather be eaten out. And I get that, that's fine, as I always say, you pays your money, you takes your choice. Now on the surface, if we wanted to be cynical, we could look at this and go these are choices that people are making. But increasingly, with the cost of survival crisis going on, these are not choices. These are people finding constructive ways of making their lives work. And across the world now, we are seeing this in every country and as I said in my previous video, in the countries where people previously prospered. What I mean by prospered is each generation got better off than the next generation. What we are seeing now is our kids and our grandkids and our kids and so on and so forth, we're seeing them not having the opportunities that we have, not having the ability to have the house that we once had, not having the ability to just have one job and one job, pay for one home. We're not seeing that anymore. Those things are extraordinarily difficult for people and people are out there as if they have to be part of the hustle and grind. You have to have investments and you have to have a side hustle and you have to be investing in crypto and you have to be dropshipping and you have to have two jobs. And I think so many people are saying, but actually, I don't want all of that. I want a reasonable standard of living. I want to be able to live and I will do whatever it takes, however it takes, is however frugal and thrifty and money saving I have to be for us to live something of a normal life where we are a family unit, where we work a reasonable amount of hours and we eat together as a family and we socialise together as a family, we live together as a family. So it might look on the surface like people are making a choice, but I think people are dealing with the hands that they are dealt and getting on with it. So when we're out there looking at this new social trend of under consumption core, what I can see and what frugal people can see, what thrifty money saving people can see is normal consumption. It's normal. It's normal to have one or two handbags. It's normal to have one or two pairs of shoes. It's normal to have two pairs of jeans, three or four t-shirts, maybe two coats, a waterproof one and a warm one. It's normal to have six glasses in the cupboard, six plates, six side plates. That's normal. But what if you, or anybody watching now, thought to yourself, actually maybe I am a bit spendy. I am, you know, things have got a bit out of hand and maybe I do want to cut back on things. This could be the 2025 where you make some decisions of things that you might want to stop doing or limit yourself in some way. For example, do you eat out a couple of times a week? Would you want to make that once a week or once a fortnight or once a month? Do you pick up a coffee? No? Every day? Every week? Do you want to scale that back? Do you love going out and buying clothes? Do you want to limit that? Do you want to say, I will only buy one item of clothes, clothing a month. Do you want to limit the amount of bags, purses that you buy? Do you want to say, well I'll only buy one this year? You can make your own rules of this. You can make your own under-consumption rule. When I look to the under-consumption core, I actually thought to myself, I don't think that the thrifty, frugal and the money-saving people that I know would actually have much to cut back on. It's just thinking about growing up like my mum. I bet my mum had the same lipstick for ten years. Ten years, probably. I do own a lipstick. It's probably getting on six years old now. It doesn't seem to, seems to be okay. If I ever wear lipstick, it's the same one. If I ever use any makeup at all, it's probably getting on at six years old. I'll just look at my, I've got two handbags, two crossbody bags. I did buy one about three years ago and the one that I bought previously to that, I bought in 2012. So yep, I'm definitely on the under-consumption core. Because that to us, frugal, money-saving people, is just normal consumption. Let me know, what do you think? Are you seeing it in your private life? I'm definitely, definitely seeing family members out there who are younger than us really struggling and I am seeing them embracing frugality as if it's just something that they need to do and they have to do. And you know, I'm watching them, you know, not spend money, not go out, not go on holidays and do all those things that maybe I would have hoped that their generation would have been able to do. Let me know, we love your comments, we love to hear from you. Thanks for watching, we'll see you again soon. Bye for now.