Episode 062 – The benefits of a frugal lifestyle | Oliver from frugalisten.de
Hello! Today we interview Oliver from the blog frugalisten.de: we will talk about being frugal not only as a strategy but also as a life philosophy, evaluating the pros and cons and looking at some examples and life hacks as well. We hope you will find some food for thought in our discussion, so sit back, relax and enjoy!
We also talk about:
- Saving and social environment
- Portfolio management times
- Lean FI
- How to be frugal
- Tracking expenses
- Repair cafes
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Frugality can be a booster on the road to FI
Oliver is a software developer living in Hannover, Germany with his girlfriend and a 4 months-old daughter. He’s 30 and aiming at reaching FI at 40. His first encounter with the FI movement happened when he was still a student in Bremen: living the typical student life he was actually leading a very frugal lifestyle with very little expenses, and getting in touch with all the knowledge on the importance of saving and multiple investing strategies he was well prepared when he got his first job, with a saving rate of almost 70 per cent.
Frugality as a philosophy of life
For Oliver frugality is more than a means to reach financial independence, rather it’s the other way around: a frugal lifestyle ensures that resources are allocated in an optimal way to maximize quality of life, which leads to avoid unnecessary expenses and focus on the important things like health, social contacts and happiness in general. Being frugal doesn’t necessarily mean avoid spending: if an expense improves the level of an experience, makes it possible to spend time with friends and family or adds to the quality of life in any way, then it’s definitely encouraged; if it doesn’t, saving those resources won’t hurt and help in the journey to FI.
FI as a “soft target”
The same focus on quality of life drives the strategies Oliver puts in place to reach FI. He aims at reaching it at 40 but doesn’t see this goal as mandatory, definitely not as something that can justify sacrificing resources that could be allocated to better live the journey. For this reason he doesn’t have fixed budgets and sees that goal as a “soft target”, something that inspires his way of living and motivates to implement the correct strategies along the way.
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