Balancing Frugality With Fun

Balancing frugality and fun relies on one tactic. It requires focusing on the people in your life rather than your stuff.

You can spend all of the money in the world, but if you have to spend that money alone, it wouldn’t be very much fun. Conversely, being in a room with your favorite people can be a blast and cost nothing.

When you look back at your fondest memories, they include the people you were with, right? You might not remember how much dinner cost, or what you were wearing, but you remember who was there. You remember the jokes, the laughter, the good times. Those things are free.

Being Frugal With Friends

A good friend is the most valuable thing you have, and it costs nothing to obtain. A smile, a joke, and a kind gesture are all free. Good friends help you to be happier, healthier, and will help you live longer. These amazing benefits can be had for free!

However, even in friendship, you have to watch your wallet. Some friendships are based on spending money together. Be careful of this. If your friend always wants to spend money or pressures you into buying the latest iPhone or Dolce and Gabbana purse, then you need to mindful. Breaking the budget in the name of friendship might be fun, but it isn’t frugal.

I had a friend that liked to meet for lunch. If you’ve known me for 5 minutes, then you know I like to eat out, so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she always picked expensive places. This is fine every once in a while, but I couldn’t pull it off every week.

So, sometimes, I would have to suggest pizza instead of the new trendy place. Or, I would even invite her over to my place for lunch once in a while. The point wasn’t the lunch, the point was spending time together. Lunch just facilitated us hanging out. I didn’t see my friend as an excuse to eat lunch out. Lunch was an excuse to see my friend. If you keep the emphasis on the friendship instead of the lunch, you can balance frugality and fun.

Frugality and After School Activities

After school activities for the kids are another place where you have to be careful to balance the frugality with the fun. You sign them up because you think it will be fun. You knew you would have to pay the initial fee, but then you are buying equipment, uniforms, snacks, chipping in for gifts, for the coach, transporting kids all over town, throwing team parties, buying professional pictures, and it seems like it never ends.


Help your wallet and your kid’s expectations of money by keeping the focus on the activity. Why did you sign up for the activity? Stay focused on that. Was it to meet people in the area or was it to learn a sport? Don’t get sidetracked. If the goal was to learn the sport, then stay with that. Do you need to throw a party to learn a sport? Do you need professional pictures? Do you need special pants? If the fun was to play baseball, then balance the frugality by cutting out the extras.

Being frugal doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. The spirit of frugality is to get the most out of your money. I certainly don’t think you are getting the most out of your money if you aren’t having fun. When you only spend money on the things that matter you can have more fun. You can spend those dollars where they will give you the most happiness. Being frugal means you can have more lunches with friends and more activities for your kids.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post. To close, I’ll leave you with an insightful quote I found!

If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can’t buy. – Author Unknown