The social aspect of continuing your relationships with your non-frugal friends can be tricky, but equally challenging can be the pragmatic aspect of how to manage the financial aspect of the relationships. How do you continue to spend time with the same friends once you’re no longer enrolling your children in the same activities or attending the same expensive restaurants?
- For starters, don’t let anyone dissuade you from your financial goals. As Dave Ramsey says, “Live like no-one else now, so you can live with no-one else later.” You may be giving up the cars, nice houses, and eating-out that your friends have, but as you give up those things, remember that you are also giving up their credit card debts, auto loans, thirty-year mortgages and under-funded retirement accounts. Once you’ve resolved within yourself that you don’t care what your friends think and say about your new financial habits, there are a few things you can do to ease the potential tensions between you and your friends.
- Have fun. If you’re constantly complaining or talking about the things you can’t afford, you’re not only going to lose your friends (because who likes a whiner?) you’re much more likely to talk yourself out of your saving plan. Discover the frugal ways to make life fun so that your friends don’t see you, and by extension, frugality, as a depressing, punitive thing.
- Invite your friends to your frugal fun. You may discover that being frugal doesn’t reduce your “fun quotient” as much as you think it will. As you find creative ways to have fun activities and beautiful surroundings, invite your friends to join you. As they see that you haven’t become a boring stick in the mud just because you’re not going out to dinner anymore, the pressures caused by your different forms of entertainment might be reduced.
- Consider creating a friend fund. You may not be going to all of the same activities your friends are anymore, but perhaps it’s worth it to budget for one or two “friend” events; you may have realized that the dinner or event isn’t entirely worth the cost, but perhaps your friendship is.
- Finally, get ready to answer questions. As your friends watch you pay off debts, save for the future, and enjoy financial peace without compromising your happiness and enjoyment, they’ll begin to wonder how you do it and what your secret is. Be prepared to introduce your spendthrift friends to you new lifestyle of frugal fun!