Kung Fu Frugality

BradensEye
4 min readApr 15, 2019

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Kung Fu View (from the laundry room of my Parisian pet/flat sitting), Photo by BradensEye

Restraint hitched with acuity delivers peak life performance. MacGyvering has blossomed to vitality. Conservation doesn’t have to be painful. Excessiveness has always run amuck. With media and advertising booms of our ever-loving technological ages, the pools of desire now overflow into oceans of surplus. Most of us don’t even notice the overkill, nor those areas of need that such gluttony might repair. Let the avarice bashing begin. Yet, we’re the true martial artist of our discipline. Dissecting where (or shall we say whom ideally) you’re saving is the abstinence addicts long for. Framing your niche in the market of frugality sets up a healthy lifespan.

Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits. ~Edmund Burke

Make something from anything. It isn’t so much what we choose as why we choose it. Using your means within your means and for the best means is what turns out to be most meaningful. Quality refuses to walk out on even the most frugal folks I’ve met. In fact, those masters of wrestling their lives have appeared to me to be swimming in the riches of wise decisions. I recall wanting all the royalties of a celebrity’s life when I began working around A-listers. It took a decade to bounce me into beginning a more minimalist lifestyle. My clarity is bolstered every conversation I listen to from friends in debt or crisis of conviction. I know I want to save my dollars for traveling the globe. I’m clear the housing market in some of the elite cities I’d adore owning a home doesn’t come close to that trek to Antarctica.

Being frugal doesn’t mean slashing your spending or depriving yourself of things that you enjoy. It means knowing the value of a dollar and making every effort to spend it wisely. ~Frank Sonnenberg, BookSmart: Hundreds of real-world lessons for success and happiness

Thriftiness never led me astray. Whatever I’ve removed from my state of living hasn’t once impoverished me. While I’m well-known for flying economy, I’ve also splurged on Business Class more than half-way around the world. It’s the prolific intellect to know when to do which. Often, the attitude of having that home, person, job, redundancy of clothing, or staplers was leading me to fill shelves instead of filling my time with joy. Reviewing why I wanted more cash in my bank account for buying plane tickets, where I wanted to lay my head at night, what I was going to do with the hours between my preferred remote-work lifestyle, and how I intended to stick to this new plan became a living meditation of lavishness at work. Posh isn’t reserved for the rich and famous. Kung fu frugality is a method for obtaining the permanence of affluent lifestyle on your own personal terms.

Without this infinite longing, whence would come the discipline which industry, perseverance, tact, sagacity, and frugality give? ~Orison Swett Marden

We’re exorbitantly over-rated. Our longings have longings. The material kingdom conflicts with natural land. What’s a wanting being to do? Diving deeper into frugally functioning has fit the bill for me. The last two years I’ve been tracking every penny I spend. Keen observational budgeting is a top tier tactic for exemplary frugality. Moreover, such practice lends a fatter backup of bucks for you to spend sagely. I cut my own hair at times. Happy hours and gratis invitations to catered events make a huge happy dent in one’s overall dining balance. House sitting oftentimes transports my dirty laundry to clean with free washing. One solid pair of scissors isn’t merely for slicing paper, as I use it to cut fruit to pizza. Swapping clothing with girlfriends not only keeps my virtual closet free of boredom but cuts way down on the consumptive nonsense of buying new just because it exists. (Not to mention the slavery savings!) Libraries around the world give access to free books, including tons of audiobooks, both of which fit easily on my smartphone. Speaking of the digital realm, one of best free mementos I know is a gorgeous photo you snapped to share.

Industry is fortune’s right hand, and frugality its left. ~John Ray

My sources of income may rise or fall, but tricks of the frugality trade remain leaving me wealthy in mind. Dominating your frugal abilities is like holding onto that rock wall as a free-climber thousands of miles above the ground and knowing you’ve got this one easy-peasy. Even the culture of ourselves, along with countless innovators or entrepreneurs are hip to the frugality delicacy. Crowdsourcing seeks to solve heritage crises. Frugalness is that tangy spice of life that blasts your nostrils with the first sniff, but which you can’t seem to turn down once the hotness overtakes all your senses. Sufficiently preserving your propensity to acquire those finer things as you deem them to be by meticulously computing the advantages of kung fu frugal’s inner guru will guide you along a bulging path of achievement. As my prudence is seasoned so sprouts new seedlings of quenchable thanks for all the experiences I’ve packed into this first half of my life.

May the sapient serpent of frugality slither stealthy into your spheres.

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BradensEye

LOVER of life. Especially people, places, philanthropy, pondering, and photography.