Why Saving Money Means Changing, Not Eliminating, How You Socialise

Why Saving Money Means Changing, Not Eliminating, How You Socialise

It’s a well-established fact that other people can be a huge drain on your budget. While cutting back on expensive social events can be good for your wallet, it can also leave you isolated. Instead of focusing solely on eliminating costs, try to find free alternative ways to bring your group together.

Photo by Joseph Evangelista

As personal finance blog Frugaling points out, a lot of society’s favourite meeting places involve spending money: eating out, going to bars, attending conventions, watching a movie. When we’re budgeting, all of these things look like numbers on a page, but we forget they also represent groups of people and, more importantly, they represent the socialisation that we all need at some point:

When I first started saving money and becoming more frugal, I didn’t notice my removal from society’s consumptive catches… But over time, I started to feel this lump in my throat… That feeling of loneliness crept back in. With each effort to save, came losses in social situations. As much as I tried to build in free time with friends that was actually free, I realised that it was challenging.

Unfortunately, there’s not always a simple answer to the problem. You, as the frugal one, can suggest cheaper or free events to your social group and try to convince them to get on board. You can try going out to restaurants without eating. Perhaps you may even need to give yourself a budget you can blow on socialisation. However, eliminating social events just because they cost money can hurt you in the long run.

Congregation Without Consumption [Frugaling via Rockstar Finance]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


2 responses to “Why Saving Money Means Changing, Not Eliminating, How You Socialise”