The golden rule of frugality.

All my life I have heard people say things like “My! How time flies!” or “Where did the year go?” and secretly thought to myself, ‘You have a calendar, you’ve crossed off the days, you know where it’s gone’. Not exactly a sympathetic point of view I admit, but then I just didn’t understand.

Then this morning I woke up, crossed another day off my calendar and suddenly realised it’s my birthday this weekend! It only feels like three months since I had my last one! It really is true, the older you get the faster time flies! And now I realise just how behind I am in my normal Christmas preparation schedule!

Normally by this point in the year, I have all my major Christmas presents sorted, I know what I am giving everyone, special Christmas foods have been made and are either maturing or frozen, and most of the major presents I have to make are made and now I’m concentrating on making the stocking fillers and cards, but not this year.

This year I have been so wrapped up in getting the allotment up and running, any thought of Christmas has completely escaped me! And now I’m panicking! There is no way I can get everything done in the time I have left!

I am going to have to do a complete re-think on the sort of gifts I give this year if I am to have any hope of getting them sorted in time, and stay frugally within in our reduced budget. You see there is a golden rule that over shadows everything about being frugal.

Being frugal is not so much about money, but about time. Or rather how much value you put on your time. Is it more economical to pay someone that little bit extra to make something you could make yourself, if you had the time to do it? And that is where the line is drawn for everyone. Everyone’s line is drawn at a different point, because everyone has different priorities, but most people do have a line which they will not cross. A point where they think to themselves ‘that is too expensive!’, and what they are really thinking is “That is not worth the time involved in creating that item.” Because time is money.

And now, because I have let my time slip away from me, I am going to have to re-draw my line in the sand.