Living a frugal life is not just making the decision to cut back on the amount of money you spend..
The Way of the Frugal Warrior involves much more than that. The great Zig Ziglar used The Wheel of Life. In elementary school, we learned about the Lokahi Wheel. For those not familiar with the Hawaiian word Lokahi, it is best defined as balance, harmony, and unity. There are countless ways to frame this concept, but the basic premise is that our lives as a whole can be broken down into different areas. In order to live a balanced life and achieve an overall high level of success, we must focus in on each individual area of the wheel.
When I set out on my journey to find frugality, my intention was to be frugal in each area of my Wheel of Life. My personal philosophy is that we cannot obtain perfect balance in life with respects to the amount of time and energy devoted to each area. For example, my job requires me to work from 8:30 to 5:30, but I cannot devote the same amount of time each day to working out or writing in this blog. However, I do believe that we can choose to eliminate anything and everything frivolous in each aspect of our lives in order to help push us toward our goals and achieve balanced success.
Zig Ziglar’s Wheel of Life which I have modeled my own life after has seven “spokes”. Each spoke is of importance and when one area is neglected or even over-emphasized, it can put strain on the other spokes and throw our lives out of balance. These seven spokes listed in order of importance to me are:
1) Spiritual
2) Mental/Intellectual
3) Physical/Health
4) Family
5) Financial
6) Social
7) Career
When thinking about how best to live a frugal life, I decided that I needed to spend time evaluating each area individually. Figuring out what was frivolous, setting goals, and creating action plans for each area was the key to success. Stay tuned for the next post as I delve deeper into the Spiritual spoke of the wheel.