how do you define a good life well some say that the more you consume the higher the quality of
your life well that's probably true if you live in poverty but if you come from middle class
background or you live in a country with a strong safety net then after covering the basic necessity
having more only certain only trap you in a certain lifestyle we may have the freedom
to spend money but we won't be free from money worried if we still use consumption as a yardstick
of a good life it's especially true if you if we leave from one paycheck to another paycheck
once your employment is dry up then you have nothing else to bounce back so is frugality
the answer well i would say yes i learned from the young age that your money your little money will
go far if you are being frugal just take my dad for example he managed to send the kids to study
overseas as a full fee paying international student we are not coming from the rich family
by the way we are just being very frugal and frugality also served me well now that i have my
own family and now i work full-time as well it it allows us to afford things that really matter
to us for the purpose of this video i define frugality as being prudent with your money
being economical and avoid waste it's not about cutting corner to save money here and there but
it's about being conscious with your spending and you only buy things when whatever you currently
have no longer serve the purpose or no longer fit for the purpose just look at my shirts i've been
wearing this for 10 years at least it got holes all over it but i'm not going to throw it away
well i'm still very confident still very feel very comfy to me and no one will see
me when i'm wearing this at home except of course the rest of the world through youtube
and if you're like most people you are trading time for money let's say i earn 20 bucks for hours
and the new shirt will cost me 40 bucks so it means that i have to give up two hours of my
life to replace a perfectly comfortable shirt with another new shirt and for what if being
frugal makes a lot of sense so where the and the more you consume the higher the quality
of your life's coming from well glad you asked i've been asking this for a long time as well
until one day i stumbled on the marketing class at uni the lecturer at the time said
you only need to create the perceived needs or wants it doesn't matter whether they actually
need that or want that you just have to create that perceptions to sell it to the market well
it hit me hard at the time market ourselves there's nothing new in that but i was naive
at the time i thought marketing is all about promotions advertising and try to promote
products or services to the markets in the most compelling way but it's more than that it's about
manufacturing you need and wants to make profit since then i also learned about planned obsolete
where the manufacturers deliberately limit the useful life of the products to keep the demands
going and we people are referred in economic terms like resources markets we become more and
more like a production unit in a machine called economy we are also socialized to consume our
way to happiness and love don't believe me this christmas or the next birthday of valentine's day
give your loved one a handmade gift that you make with love with a lot of thoughts in that
and see how they react if you're poor then they will probably understand even appreciate that but
if you're rich or they know that you make a lot of money then they would be disappointed they would
think why would why do you want to give me this crap i mean you don't know you no longer love me
the price tag that you pay become the proxy of your love in the age of consumerisms love
and attention is no longer that you just give personally it's something that you buy off the
shelf i have friends they say that i'm cheap they don't understand why would i still want to live um
student lifestyle they reckon that i'm just depriving myself the joy of life
well i don't see in that way i see myself as escaping from the hedonic treadmill
i don't want to just keep spending spending for the sake of spending and just repeat
the cycle again just to testing up the things called happiness through spending
no i'm out of the game my joy happens to come from writing reading hit the upload button to youtube
or spending time with kids if they are in the best behavior just a simple pressure of life
and also feels me joys and peace when i know that i have buffers when something happen to
me or to us that i still have money to live on even though i live in australia where we have a
Centrelink or strong safety nets but still i want to give example for my kids that you need to take
care of yourself we might also have a different type of economy if frugality becomes a new normal
economy that works for us instead of treating the people and the planet as a disposable resources
just imagine if the company is no longer able to persuade us to buy things that we don't need
or want or use the money that we don't have or impress people that we don't really respect
then probably i said probably it will force them to innovate based on actual needs
and be part of the problem-solving that's it for me guys thanks for watching if give it a
like and subscribe if you learn something new and i will see you next time thank you