The New Frugality Lessons and Key Takeaways

1. “An emergency savings fund covering twelve months or more of expenses.” Have savings that can carry you through the difficult times by putting a lot of money in savings and watch it compound and grow.
2. “Spending less than you earn.” Spending a certain amount of money during the month is good as long as you are saving as well. Only spend less than what is required.
3. Earn a college diploma and keep your employment and save the amount in what you were paying in school fees.
4. Pay off your credit cards in full and save ten percent of whatever you paid off.
5. “Go for quality, not quantity.” Take care of your possessions. They matter.
6. Thrift- the quality of using money and other resources carefully and not wastefully. Use money smartly and sparingly and for a specific reason. Or else do not use it. Period.
7. “The second Vice is Lying; the first is Running into Debt,”- Benjamin Franklin. Do not get into debt. Debt is a liability. Debt is on the right. Debt means you are going to go bankrupt. Debt means bad credit. Debt means not being a role model. Debt means living above your wages. Debt means not being mindful with your money, your time, or your extracurricular activities.

Biggest Takeaway

Debt is a liability. Don’t be a liability to anyone. They will run.

Quote in Summary

“Be an asset to someone by managing your life as if frugality were King. Frugality in money. Mindfulness in speech. Careful with your time and resources.” ( )

Nothing new if you're already a saver. Good for the newly frugal or the wannabe frugal. ( )

Timely book on a touchy subject, this volume will change the way you see consumption and need. What if less was good? Based on experience and useful tips, this book is an easy read on a not-so-easy but much needed subject. ( )

The New Fru­gal­ity: How to Con­sume Less, Save More, and Live Bet­ter by Chris Far­rell is a non-fiction book about per­sonal finance. The author is an eco­nom­ics con­trib­u­tor on radio shows and write columns on the subject.

I was excited to start read­ing The New Fru­gal­ity: How to Con­sume Less, Save More, and Live Bet­ter by Chris Far­rell since the intro­duc­tion sounded great. The book cov­ers sev­eral aspects of per­sona finance such as debts, invest­ments, retire­ment and more.

I con­sider myself a fru­gal per­son, not cheap or being a miser. For exam­ple, a few months ago, right before Black Fri­day, our dish­washer broke. We have home owner's insur­ance so we pay a small sum to fix appli­ances, instead of pay­ing to fix a 15 — 20 year old machine, we spent a bit more to buy a new one on a spe­cial sale.

The book does not give much, or any, new infor­ma­tion to some­one who is fru­gal or read other per­sonal finance book. The advice is mostly con­ser­v­a­tive and sensible.Avoid excess, bud­get, don't take on too much, or any, debt and, of course, live within your means.

Any­one inter­ested in per­sonal finance, tight­en­ing up the bud­get, being fru­gal or just for moti­va­tion to keep sav­ing and liv­ing within your means would find this book inter­est­ing. Being fru­gal will make your life bet­ter, I believe that and so does the author.

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit http://www.ManOfLaBook.com ( )

The introduction to this book was quite promising. I got very excited, thinking that I would learn something new about frugality. However, although the book is filled with a lot of sound personal finance advice, it really doesn't say much new, or much about frugality. It covers how to make sure you are doing the right thing in each area of your personal financial world, and teaches you a lot of concepts that might be new to you if you haven't read much about finance. But if you have read the literature, or if you are already a frugal type, this book won't add much value. That said, if I had someone around that I felt was completely uneducated in this area, maybe just realizing that financial planning is a good idea, I might start them with this book.

I personally would have liked a fresh hard look at living frugally and being content with less. But most of that was confined to the intro and the rest was just the usual stuff. The first few chapters were great though! ( )