海角大神

A few months ago, I wrote a post called 鈥淭wo Paths to Financial Success.鈥� In it, I outlined how there are two distinct ways to succeed financially.

One, which I called 鈥渟uccess in the margins,鈥� refers to things like frugality, cutting costs, saving diligently, and so forth. The other, which I called 鈥渟uccess in the mainstream,鈥� referred to things like entrepreneurship and career building.

Success in the margins, I pointed out, is a sure way to success, but there is something of a cap to that success. You鈥檙e limited in how much you can save by your income and your fundamental living expenses. On the other hand, success in the mainstream doesn鈥檛 have a cap, but it is far from a guarantee. Entrepreneurship and career pursuit are risky enterprises that often don鈥檛 turn out.

Anyway, a reader recently took me to task for referring to frugality and saving as 鈥渟uccess in the margins.鈥� In his words, 鈥淭here is nothing marginal whatsoever about the money you can save by living sensibly and putting some money into investments. It鈥檚 practical, anyone can do it, and the positive results can be repeated over and over again. That鈥檚 far from marginal.鈥�

I agree completely with his statement. The reason I named it such was not because it is a marginal method, but because it is inherently capped by your income and lifestyle. Frugality, by its very nature, is about shaving away a little bit from the edges and saving what you鈥檝e trimmed. That money comes about from the margins of your life.

For example, one of the first moves I made when I started my financial recovery is to reboot my work commute. Before the change, I would drive by a coffee shop on my way to work and many days I would be tempted to stop in there, have a cup of coffee, and often follow it with a bagel. On my way home, I would drive by an electronics store and a bookstore, and I would visit both of them a few times a week. Naturally, each week, I found myself spending a lot of unnecessary money.

When I changed my commute, I no longer went by the coffee shop, the electronics store, or the bookstore. I decided that it was just fine if I happened to go to them, but with my new route, I had to make the willful choice to go there. The big sign wasn鈥檛 hanging out there along my route tempting me.

So, every once in a while, I鈥檇 decide to splurge and go to one of the places, but most of the time, I barely even thought about them on my way home from work.

Those coffee shop and bookstore visits were in the margins of my life. They were things that I did, but they weren鈥檛 deeply important to me or to who I was. They just filled up some of my time and attention. I barely noticed when I cut them away.

That, to me, is 鈥渟uccess in the margins.鈥�

Frugality does not work if it鈥檚 removing something you value more than the money you鈥檙e saving. If you鈥檙e making yourself miserable to save a few dollars, it鈥檚 not worth it.

Quite often, when people think about frugality, they don鈥檛 think about the margins. Instead, they think about the things they value deeply. They don鈥檛 want to lose that valuable thing, so they just toss aside the idea of cutting back.

Frugality works well in the margins. It works when you鈥檙e trying a different kind of dishwashing soap. It works when you cut out a routine shopping trip that鈥檚 become boring. It works when you give up on and get rid of the pieces of a hobby that you鈥檙e no longer passionate about. It works when you make a bunch of meals ahead of time, buying the ingredients in bulk, so you can store the made-ahead meals in the freezer and always have something convenient to make for supper.

So often, these kinds of changes are really easy to make. You pretty much forget about the change once you鈥檝e started doing it, and the only impact it has is the savings that appear in your checking account.

Success in the margins does not mean marginal success. It means finding success in the areas of your life that don鈥檛 deeply matter to you.