10 Things EVERYONE Loves About Frugal Living - But I Don't (DON'T HATE ME!)

Back in my early frugal years, I tried everything to get our money under control. Spreadsheets I'd forget to update, binders that were too complicated to keep up with, even elaborate color-coded systems I swore would change my life. But no matter what I did, I always ended up right back where I started, overwhelmed and guessing. Then one day, I pulled out a plain notebook, a pencil, and sat down at the dining room table. I wrote down every bill, every dollar, every due date, and something just clicked. For the first time, I could see our money in a way that made sense to me. It wasn't fancy, it wasn't expensive, but it worked. And that's kind of how I came up with the design for the free budget planner I offer in the description. And when something works, you keep doing it. But here's the thing, that lightbulb moment taught me something important. Not every frugal habit is worth keeping. No matter how many people swear by it, some are helpful for a season, others just never fit at all. Over the years, I've tested them, tweaked them, and let a few go without looking back. And that's what I wanted to talk about today. The frugal living habits everyone seems to love, but I just don't. Hi my friend, if you're new here, my name is Sarah and I'm the owner of FrozenPennies.com. I'm a financial coach and the author of the international best-selling book Fundamentally Frugal. Link below. And let me tell you about the winter I officially crossed the line into too frugal. It was January in upstate New York. The kind of cold that bites through your coat and settles in your bones. And I had it in my head that we were going to save big on the gas bill by keeping the heat at 58 degrees. Now this was before children, so no children were harmed. I was committed. I wore two pairs of socks, kept the oven door cracked after baking, and layered up like we were camping inside a snow globe. But then I got sick. Like, I dragged myself out of bed coughing, aching, and your soul sick. And still, I didn't turn the heat up. I remember sitting at the kitchen table in a hoodie, a blanket, fingerless gloves, and trying to eat soup I couldn't taste and thinking, I feel like crud, but I'm saving money. My husband looked at me like I'd lost my mind, and honestly, I think I had. Just a little. So, he turned up the heat. That's when it hit me. Frugality had stopped being helpful and started to become a punishment. I wasn't saving, I was suffering. And so was he. And for what? A smaller bill and a bigger cold? That was the day I gave myself permission to turn up the thermostat when I was cold, and stopped thinking that being a martyr for my cause was noble. Frugality isn't a personality test, it's a tool. One of many. And when the tool becomes the burden, when it starts costing you joy, energy, and identity, it's okay to put it down. You don't have to be frugal perfectly to be frugal well. Now, I have this video that I put out a couple of weeks ago about all of the things I do for free, and the side of frugal living that I love. Now, I got such a great response to it that I thought I wanted to share a little bit more about the parts of frugal living that I'm just not a fan of. No, don't get me wrong, I am frugal to the core. It's in my heart and deep within my bones, but sometimes there are things that just don't serve me. Number one, the minimalist wardrobe. I know the internet loves a good 10-piece capsule wardrobe. Just mix and match, they say. And yeah, it's fine in theory, but in practice, it's laundry burnout. When you're on your third rotation of the same two pairs of jeans and suddenly it feels less like mindful simplicity and more like you forgot to adult. Sure, it saves money, but it destroys your creativity. And sometimes you miss the joy of opening your closet and seeing options, color, texture, personality. I'm all for fewer clothes, but not at the cost of feeling like a cartoon character who wears the same outfit every single day. Zero waste living. Look, I recycle, I use glass over paper plates, I reuse containers until the lids disappear. But full on zero waste living, that's a part-time job. Making beeswax wrap, making your own toothpaste and deodorant, sewing reusable paper towels. It's beautiful on Pinterest. But when you're juggling caregiving, grown kids, aging parents, a job, career, business, and your sanity, the idea of turning banana peels into bacon is just too much. I admire the effort and love it for those who truly love doing it, but the guilt that comes with tossing a plastic baggie is real. I want to be environmentally conscious, but I also need to survive Tuesday. And sometimes Tuesday wins. Number three, freezer cooking for a month. The promise of freezer cooking is seductive. A month of meals. No daily dinner stress? Well, yes, please. So you shop, chop, and label 17 meals in ziplocs. And by the end, your back hurts, your kitchen looks like a war zone, and your freezer smells like onions. By week two, every meal tastes like bland regret. And you're standing there thinking, why did I make five of the same stew? Well, it's efficient, sure, but I missed cooking something I actually wanted to eat, something that I was craving. Sometimes frugal living means variety, even if it's just breakfast for dinner and zero dump anything. Number four, thrifting everything. There's something magical about finding a $6 cashmere sweater at Goodwill. But for every treasure, there are also three hours spent digging through cracked Tupperware, broken blenders, and jeans from 2004. Secondhand shopping can be frugal and fun until it becomes a full-time hunt. Sometimes I just want a shirt that fits in the right color with no mystery stains, and I want it today. There's no shame in liking new things now and then. Thrifting is a tool, not a personality trait. Sometimes it is. And if I'm being honest, I'm tired of pretending every little thrift store trip is a quirky adventure. Who has time for that? Number five, air drying laundry. Air drying laundry sounds lovely, romantic even, until your towels feel like exfoliating mitts, your shirts dry into weird shapes, and your humid house starts to smell like a locker room. In the summertime, it's mildew. In the winter, it's stiff jeans you can stand in the corner. I've tried. I've tried really hard. But I missed the softness. The speed, and let's be real, the sanity of a dryer. Not everything has to be a pioneer era reenactment. Sometimes the modern way is the frugal way when it means your clothes last longer and you don't resent every load of laundry. You know your towels are too rough when you dry off and you lose a layer of skin. Mine were so crunchy, I could have used them to sand furniture. Who needs a belt sander when you've got line-drying bath towels? It gives a new meaning to exfoliating. Number 6. Extreme meal stretching. Now, I love using up leftovers. I normally do. But some meals were never meant to be resurrected more than three times. Leftover taco meat becomes rice bowls, then soup, then somehow breakfast with eggs. I've lived that life and I've regretted it. Maybe my husband has regretted it a little bit more. He's good with one round of leftovers. After that, he's all done. There's frugal, and then there's forcing your family to do the science experiment because it technically still has protein in it. Stretching food is smart, but sometimes we cross the line from resourceful to sort of ridiculous. I'm not ashamed to say I throw the last serving out many times. And no, I don't want to talk about the leftover casserole frittata. Number 7. Living without a dryer, dishwasher, or microwave. I know there's a certain charm in doing things the old-fashioned way, but let's not romanticize the struggle. I've lived without a microwave, I've hand-washed endless dishes, I've dried laundry on every chair in the house. And you know what? It's not character building. It's exhausting. I like convenience. These aren't luxury items, they're tools that buy back time, energy, and sometimes sanity. Frugal living doesn't mean punishing yourself, it means being smart with your resources. And if a $99 microwave keeps me from losing it at 7pm on a Tuesday, that's a trade I'm willing to make. Right now my dishwasher is broke. I have a repair guy coming to fix it for the second time in 9 years. But guess what that means? Paper plates are being used. I'd much rather do that than spend all of the hot water and time doing the dishes by hand. Pause and ask yourself, when was the last time I chose discomfort? Not because I had to, but because I thought I should. Number 8. Turning the heat down to 58 degrees. Yeah, it saves money, but you can only wear so many pairs of socks before your toes stage a protest. I've lived the just-add-another-blanket life, and guess what? I was still cold. I wasn't cozy. I wasn't content. I was angry. Turn your house into a meat locker to save $12 on the gas bill is not always worth it. I'm not trying to relive the Oregon Trail every winter. Frugal living should feel safe and sane, not like you're one frozen pipe away from disaster. You deserve to be warm, that's not a luxury, that's a basic need. And I'm not willing to make any exceptions. Number 9. Using every scrap of food. I'm all about reducing waste, but there's a difference between smart and strange. I've made broth from veggie scraps, I've stretched meat with lentils, and I've baked banana bread from brown bananas. But when we start talking about beet, peeled chips, and carrot-topped pesto, I'm out. That to me is not frugal, it's a survival TV show looking for ratings. And usually not a tasty one. Not everything needs to be transformed. Some things can go into the compost or trash and that's okay. Guilt should never be the secret ingredient in your soup. Let's normalize eating food we actually like, not just food we rescued. Number 10. Getting rid of any non-essential. There's this pressure in the frugal world to cut everything that isn't 100% necessary. Goodbye streaming services, goodbye fancy coffee, goodbye joy. But I don't want to live in a world where I can't buy a new book or sip a really good latte. Those little non-essentials, they're what keeps us going. They bring color and comfort to our days. Being frugal doesn't mean stripping your life down to the barest bones. It means choosing what matters to you and budgeting for it. And I'm not giving up the things that make life feel like mine, no matter how much they cost. But here's the thing I've come to realize, and maybe you have too. We don't do all of this just because it's trendy or admirable. Sometimes we do it because somewhere deep down we might be afraid. Afraid of running out of something. Afraid of making a mistake. Afraid of being caught off guard or depending on someone who's not going to catch us. So we tighten the budget. We say no when we want to say yes. We stretch things further than they were ever really meant to go. Not because we love the challenge, but because we're scared of what happens if we don't. A lot of us grew up watching people we love struggle. Maybe we went without. Maybe money was tight or unpredictable or used as a weapon. And now, even when things are okay-ish on paper, that panic still lives in our nervous system. So we overcorrect. We try to do everything right. We become the responsible one. The saver. The fixer. The one who brings soup in a reused yogurt container and says, don't worry, I've got it. And let's be honest, there's guilt too. Guilt that we have more than our parents did. Guilt that we could buy the thing, but know someone else who can't. Guilt that whispers, you shouldn't want that. And somewhere along the way, frugality gets tangled up with morality. Like the harder it is, the better we are. Like suffering equals virtue. And some of us need to be frugal. But here's the truth. You don't have to earn your worth through sacrifice if you don't have to. You don't have to prove your goodness by how little you spend on how much you go without. You're already doing enough. More than enough. You can live wisely and live well. You can love saving money and the frugal life without letting it become your whole identity. And you could let go of the guilt because joy is not the enemy of frugality. It's the point. Frugal living has its moments. I've built a life and a career around it, and I still believe in its power. It's part of who I am down to my core. But that doesn't mean I love everything about it. Sometimes it's just hard. It's draining. And it's asking a lot of us, especially in midlife when we're already carrying so much. If you've ever felt guilty for not loving every budget hack or felt burned out by the constant pressure to do more with less, you're not alone. And honestly, it's more important than being perfectly frugal anyway. So take a shortcut. Use the dryer. Buy the beautiful red sweater. Being frugal doesn't mean being joyless. And it's okay, truly, to make choices that serve your soul, not just your budget. You don't owe anyone a frugal performance. You just owe yourself a life that feels like yours. And if this video spoke to you, don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and watch this video next.