TIME OUT:Being prudent can lead to greater self-esteem
FRUGALITY IS the practice of self-restraint, self-denial, of thrift, prudence and economy in consumption. Recently it has been rediscovered, revisited and revised. Necessity has always been a great re-inventor of old inventions. And so frugality is being updated and upgraded for a generation who never heard about it before, or who might have regarded it as tight-fisted, penny-pinching, mealy-minded stinginess.
It is extraordinary to witness frugality emerging as a new, exciting, environmentally friendly, ecologically sound, economic concept and practice. Yet to a generation who remembers the middle of the last century, frugality was a way of life as enshrined in thinking and practice as if it were constitutional.
That is why the new high status that the concept of frugality is enjoying is amusing to the generation that practised it decades ago, many of whom most wisely never discontinued the practice, despite all societal inducements to do so, and who are insulted by the implication that they participated in the “greed” that hallmarked the past decade.
There are many reading this article who grew up in an era that recycled before the word was invented – an era when “waste not, want not” was respected, when every object had at least a second use, when the brown paper wrapping on the “parcel from America” was folded and saved to cover schoolbooks, when the string was stored, the stamps collected for the “missions” and the contents of that box of shiny objects and colourful clothes were relished for their garish gaiety and outrageous luxury.
They were symbols of unimaginable consumerism the other side of the Atlantic, consumption that was alien, at the time, to these shores.
Those who remember the former incarnation of frugality will confirm that it was more than thriftiness, more than carefulness, more than cost-consciousness, parsimonious behaviour. It was more than prudent management of limited resources. It was ingrained. It was a value. It was ideological. It was a moral imperative. Its converse was a “sin”.
Frugality was practised as a household norm. Who of that time will not remember the ordinary, everyday frugality that was the routine – the darning and mending, the hand-me-downs from eldest to youngest, the hems turned up and down, the buttons replaced, shoes heeled, mended and polished.
Wardrobes were small, possessions were few. Quality, not quantity, was the maxim. There was “the good coat”, the “Sunday best” and the “everyday”.
The burden of decision about what to wear didn’t exist because choices were few. There were sensible, sturdy clothes for everyday and “best” for occasions.
It was a generation that did not encourage too much dressing up or showing off. Wealth, if one was fortunate to be blessed with it, was understated, inconspicuous and discreet. Leftovers became shepherd’s pie. Home produce, to which we are now returning, was the order of the day. A society that atavistically remembered the Famine did not waste anything edible.
This is not to idealise a time that had its own serious difficulties, to pretend that terrible poverty did not exist, or to deny a different kind of gloom, pessimism, darkness, dreariness and dread that hung over a people in a new Republic struggling to find an identity. But if research has shown the psychological benefits of the practice of frugality versus a materialistic ethos, then re-appropriating frugality is worthwhile.
Materialism has been correlated psychologically with poorer wellbeing, problematic relationships, more competitive and less co-operative behaviour, and with less generosity.
Frugality, as a chosen practice, has been equated with greater happiness, self- esteem, self-control, lower anxiety and greater generosity and altruism. Less is more.
Clinical psychologist Marie Murray is director of student counselling services in UCD. She is author of Living Our Timespublished by Gill and Macmillan and her radio slot Mindtimeon Drivetimeis on Wednesdays on RTÉ Radio 1