I’m male, 51 years old, married with no kids, and the owner of a small flat in London and a small house in rural France. Late last year, I realised that perhaps, just perhaps, I could afford to live for the rest of my life without ever going to work again.



It’s not going to be easy. My wife and I will have to get by on a fraction of what we once earned, but we’re used to living frugally. It’s how we got into this situation in the first place.

I’m not from a wealthy family – far from it. My mother raised my brother and me on her own, and we watched every single penny we spent. We never lacked for anything, but we certainly never overpaid for anything either. Living frugally became second nature. It’s part of who I am.

When I arrive in a new town, the first places I go to are its charity shops. The things that people give away provide an insight into an area’s real nature in a way that only a pub can rival. And there are things such as suits, ties and coats that I would never consider buying new. Chasing down what you’re after is part of the fun of being frugal, and finding things you never expected is the cherry on the cake. Thank you, Langworthy Road, Salford, for that box of 30 imported David Bowie 7in singles (£5).

I have no interest in clothes, but I have spent so many years browsing in the nation’s charity shops that I can spot something well made at 20 paces. Several years ago, I was invited to attend an awards do in London. Black tie. Dinner jacket. I headed to Wilmslow, Cheshire, and dived straight into Oxfam. From the four DJ suits that fitted, I chose the one by Yves Saint-Laurent – £20. Also hanging in my wardrobe are suits by Gieves & Hawkes and Giorgio Armani (£35 and £30 respectively, Cancer Research, Clapham), as well as a wonderful vintage Crombie coat (£25, a local charity, Midhurst).

If you enjoy learning new things, frugality is the perfect gateway to a world of knowledge that comes in useful more often than you might think.

In my younger days, I drove a succession of cars so unreliable that I had a mental map of the finest scrapyards in Britain, where I bought everything from complete engines and gearboxes to doors and headlights. When my windscreen shattered one day on the North Circular, it never occurred to me to do anything other than head to the nearest scrapper, clamber up the teetering pile of cars and pick up a replacement: £10.

I have no overpowering interest in cars, but because I choose to run them as cheaply as possible I have acquired a fairly detailed knowledge of how they work. If I do need to go to a garage, I can offer a description of a problem (and often a diagnosis) and I’ll know if the response is honest and the work has been done.

In the past three years, I have become, at various times, a short-term expert on everything from domestic washing machines (spin speeds, reliability, noise) to Peugeot Citroën diesel engines (fuel economy, reliability, introduction date and effects of diesel particulate filters), internet via satellite (download speeds, latency and VoIP) and the relative cotton thread count and weight of leading T-shirt manufacturers.

Thirty imported David Bowie 7in singles for £5? Bargain. Photograph: urbancow/Getty Images

The frugal life is not a modus vivendi for misers, but a positive lifestyle choice, where you take control of your spending power and choose how you allocate your resources. Stop torturing yourself over the things you want to buy next and embrace the joy of living well for less.

I use the word “joy” advisedly. Living frugally is not a punishment. It is fun. By taking control of your spending power, you not only gain materially, but you also learn about your purchases in advance and know that what you do buy is of the highest possible quality.

Frugality is not just about knowing the cost of everything. It’s about knowing its value too. Most of all, it’s about recognising the most important of all your rights as a consumer: the right to consume as, when and how you see fit.

Instead of rushing out to update your phone every 12 months and your car every three years, frugality can give you pause. This is your chance to ask yourself if you’re happy with what you’ve got and, if so, whether you really need another expense or more disposable crap.

It’s about taking charge of your life and staying in charge, like mindfulness for your wallet. Think about where every pound you earn goes. If you don’t like it, change it.

Start by keeping an eye on outgoings. If you don’t know off the top of your head what you spend every month on power and heating, internet and telephony, chances are that you’re already throwing away money that you’d rather spend on something else. Or worse, the money you’re wasting is preventing you from being able to afford that holiday you really want. The tragedy is that you don’t even know it. Get frugal. Get control. Go on holiday.

Similarly – and this I admit sounds tedious – it pays to check your till receipts, especially where special offers are concerned. Some supermarkets are lax about updating barcodes: in the past two months alone, I’ve almost been overcharged by £35 for items I was buying in bulk because they were supposedly on offer. Every penny of yours matters to the supermarkets, so why shouldn’t it matter to you?

If you suspect you’ve been unfairly treated or overcharged, or even if you buy something you don’t like, don’t just shrug and chalk it up to experience – write a letter, make a phone call. Have fun with it. Be light-hearted if appropriate, but let them know that you’re not happy. I recently sent a jokey email to a well regarded supermarket chain about its vile own-brand piccalilli and received an apology and a £5 voucher, which I was able to put towards a decent single malt.

While writing, I turned to my wife to ask how our frugal lifestyle makes her feel. But she was busy cutting an “empty” hand cream tube in half to get five more days’ moisturising out of it. That both of us do such things without thinking is a testament to our war-generation parents, but neither of us is mean. We can go out pretty much whenever we want and we never duck out of a round. Evading social responsibilities in the pub, on birthdays or at weddings is just tight, not frugal.

Taking good care of money allows us to splash out on luxuries when we really want them. And now, fingers crossed, it’s allowed us the ultimate luxury: that of no longer being obliged to rent ourselves to an employer.