Since we often talk about saving money but we also talk about being minimalist, we figured it’s time to talk about the two together. Why? Well, we don’t know about you but we have often found that our fight to be minimalists can sometimes contradict our strive to be more frugal.

We didn’t realize how much a frugal minimalist lifestyle conflict until we started to crack down on just how many items we owned. Plus, now that we live in a tiny trailer home, we have to give a lot more thought to each item we buy.

We will say that, overall, being minimalists has saved us money for the simple reason of buying fewer things. We give more thought before every purchase and because of this, we end up buying less.

In the “impulse buying” category, we save more money. But we have found there are times we end up spending more money because of our minimalist choices.

Somewhere along the line, we found the perfect balance between minimalist frugal living. Being frugal has allowed us to be better minimalists and embrace simple living.

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Being Frugal

Frugal is not about avoiding spending time or money or resources but instead making what you spend valuable. Having a frugal mindset means having cautious regard for where your money goes. To us, frugal living is all about being efficient. Efficient with time, money, and resources.

Using your resources and time wisely and effectively to get things done is truly what being living frugally is all about. But remember, every person has a different value for their time.

Being Minimalist

Minimalism has a lot of different definitions. If you searched for minimalism online and went to 10 different sites, you might find several different definitions.

So what is minimalism to us? Minimalism is about living more with less. It sounds abstract but it’s easy to see in practice.

Due to our nomad lifestyle in our tiny home, we were almost forced into a minimalist state. We find ways to make that work for us by living a great life with less stuff. That small space provides us with such comfort and happiness in everything we do in life.

Why They Work Together

There are some people who might think of these two ideas and have a minimalist vs frugality mentality. We like to think you can see a little bit in each of those descriptions of frugality and minimalism, how those ideas can tie together.

Being frugal is all about being efficient and economical in your time, money, and resources. Minimalism is about using your time and space to be more efficient, economical, and happy. They are two sides of the same coin when you boil it down.

Both have helped us with the less is more mindset. By incorporating both mindsets into our lives it helps make sure we love everything we own.

How it Can Go Wrong

The ideas aren’t inherently opposed to each other. They want to work together but sometimes the extremes start to fight the benefits. There are two common ways the two contradict each other.

1. Saving items not often used
2. Buying items in bulk

We make both of these decisions with the mindset of "saving money" but then it can lead to having more items than we need.

For us, we run into this problem the most with 1. Buying Clothes and 2. Buying Groceries.

What to Do

So what should one do when frugality and minimalism conflict? Simply take it case by case and decide what is best for you. For us, the minimalist mindset typically wins out as that is more of our priority.

But that may not be best for everyone. If saving money is something you worry about, then maybe the extra space being used to store those extra items is worth not having to buy the items later.

Just remember...Frugality is not about saving money but being smart about spending money. And minimalism is not about having nothing but about enjoying the little that you do have more.

Frugal Minimalism

Being frugal means spending your resources wisely and being minimalist means enjoying your resources more fully. Doing just one of those things can add value to your life but being a frugal minimalist can give your life a whole new purpose and value.

Focus on what adds to your live, spending your money wisely. Always remember that less can be more.