Annie Raser-Rowland - The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More

The Art of Frugal Hedonism

A guide to spending less while enjoying everything more

The Art of
Frugal
Hedonism

A guide to spending less while enjoying everything more

Annie Raser-Rowland with Adam Grubb

Copyright Annie Raser-Rowland & Adam Grubb 2016

The moral rights of Annie Raser-Rowland & Adam Grubb to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted.

This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the publisher. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book. In the event of any omissions please contact the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Creator: Raser-Rowland, Annie, author
Title: The Art of Frugal Hedonism: a guide to spending less while enjoying
everything more
ISBN: 978-0-9943928-3-1 (eBook)

Subjects:
Ethics of Consumption
Home economicsAccounting
Quality of life
Simplicity
Attitude change
Other Creators/Contributors: Grubb, Adam, author
Number: 178

Cover image by Marc Martin
Design by Adam Grubb
Publishing team: Meg Ulman, Su Dennett, Richard Telford and Ian Robertson

First published by Melliodora Publishing 2016

Melliodora Publishing
16 Fourteenth Street,
Hepburn Victoria 3461, Australia
www.melliodora.com

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to our many interviewees: Su Dennett, Belinda Kerrison, Lawrence Hamilton, Isobel Harper, Danny Renehan, Meg Ulman, Patrick Jones, Srinath Baba, Peter Lalor, Joh M., Jack and Lois Monaghan, Trish Harris, Ibby E. Okinyi, Nadia Faragaab, Toby Mclaughin and Taryn Ellis.

Gratitude also goes out to the many people who gave feedback on sections of the manuscript as it evolved. Davina, Danny, Lucy, Sam, Hermann, Brooke, Nan, Marilyn, Taryn, Saskia, Shultz, Michael, and especially Frances Rowland, who read and re-read and gave reams of detailed and useful advice (and stayed gracious even when it was blithely ignored).

Contents

Foreword Clive Hamilton

W hat a terrific idea , a book showing how frugal living can be pleasurable. Not the kind of smug pleasure of the drop-out or the feeling of moral superiority that comes with driving a Prius (yes, thats me), but real actual sensual pleasure.

Critics of consumerism often talk about our addiction to things, and its a good way to think about it. Once you are hooked it takes over your life you do crazy things to feed your addiction (like work incessantly, sacrifice relationships and run up debts), and yet the last hit doesnt really satisfy so you crave more.

Think about it: What would happen if all forms of electronic communication crashed overnight no mobile phones, no text messaging, no Facebook, no email, nothing for the kids to watch on their iPads when having a family dinner with their parents. Would people be unhappy? You bet they would. There would be screams of outrage, howls of distress, heart palpitations and demands that the government fix it quick.

But after a few days, a few weeks for the real addicts, people would find that there are other things to do, other ways to communicate (conversation is good). After all, in the 1950s hell, in the 1980s none of these things existed. Were people miserable then? In fact, all of the data show that people in the 1950s were happier! They had fridges but no air travel, telephones but no iPhones, pets but no pet jewellery, barbecues but no $7000 outdoor kitchens, and fast food that meant fish and chips.

Yet we have been convinced, not least by a vast marketing industry devoted specifically to the purpose, that we will be happy only if we have the latest gadget, a bigger house, a car that parks itself or a TV that swivels to face us if we shift from one end of the couch to the other. After all, the advertising industry exists to make us feel dissatisfied so that we buy more stuff.

In recent times marketing has zeroed in on one big message: Buying this thing or that thing will set you free. Cars, exotic holidays, insurance, home appliances, you name it; all of these things can liberate us, although they rarely say from what. The truth is that as long as we fall for these messages (and nearly all of us do) we are locked in a prison, the prison of consumerism, and thats the one prison that the marketers can never, ever promise to free us from.

When I look around its pretty obvious who are the freest people in our communities the ones who have escaped the prison of consumerism and money-hunger. They dont necessarily live in huts and go dumpster diving every night, but they manage to live self-possessed enjoyable lives with great friends and jobs they love. They do many things consumers do, but always in moderation (while occasionally lashing out, just for the hell of it). They eat well, stay fairly fit, give more, are socially engaged and stress less than most of us.

Bastards!

In fact, the freest and most contented people pretty much follow the advice in The Art of Frugal Hedonism .

Despite all of its pleasures, there is a downside to the kind of frugal living described in this book. If you practise it, some of your friends, family and colleagues will become cranky with you. They will tell you (or tell each other) that you are moralizing, putting yourself on a higher ethical plane. It doesnt matter how low key you play it, the chances are they will still load you up with these accusations. The truth is that they are not cranky with you; they are cranky with themselves.

In this situation there are two solutions find new friends, family and colleagues, or slip them a copy of The Art of Frugal Hedonism .

Clive Hamilton is the author of Growth Fetish and co-author with Richard Denniss of Affluenza: When Too Much Is Never Enough .

About this book

Dear reader,

We want you to have an excellent life. And we dont think you should have to spend much money to do it. This book is about how.

That doesnt mean pages of advice on collecting discount coupons, squirreling away soap ends, and constructing careful budgeting strategies, because:

a) Those things dont get to the heart of the relationship between how much you enjoy life and how you use money,

b) Your authors find those things dull to think about for very long, and certainly didnt want to spend two years writing a book about them.

Instead, this book provides a selection of tips that dive right into the soft gooey centre of how we approach feeling good , and how that affects our spending. It examines ways to overhaul some habits that you may have accidentally fallen into via living in a culture that encourages consumption at every turn. It looks at how changing those habits can generate a life that both makes more sense, and indulges your senses. There are some practical bits, and some science-y bits. There are some recipes, and some psychology. There are some serious bits, and some really quite preposterous bits

About you

It doesnt matter how much money you have. This book is designed to be read by anyone interested in how consuming less can make life more magnificent. Or just anyone curious about how skilled cheapskates get away with it. Youll find it particularly useful if: