It’s easy enough to live it up, given infinite amounts of cash; there are even expensive consultants to ensure you have a good time. It’s much more challenging to get out and enjoy entertainment, nightlife, fine foods, and other indulgences when you’re acutely non-prosperous (“poor”).
If these things are to your taste, you will have to apply your cunning brain and the grease of your very elbow, and you will surprisingly often find that these are enough. The following manifesto perfectly articulates this. It’s from the book Frugal Indulgents: How to Cultivate Decadence When Your Age and Salary are Under Thirty, by Kera Bolonik and Jennifer Griffin. Naturally, we here at running through rain are not ageist (and we may even be over thirty!) so we suggest these are applicable for frugals of all ages.
THE FRUGAL INDULGENT MANIFESTO
Frugal Indulgents celebrates liberation from capital: True bouviessence (glamour at all times for all occasions) is, believe it or not, independent of money.
There are certain basic principles that apply to every aspect of life as a Frugal Indulgent. These concern behaviour and attitude. Before we begin, we feel it is important that you know where we’re coming from, so we’ve penned the Frugal Indulgent Manifesto for your reading pleasure.
Follow these rules, and relish your imminently grand lifestyle.
- Never Act Your Age or Your Income. You may be young and poor, but you are also smart and tasteful. Try to let the latter qualities overshadow the former.
- Aim High. If you assume you can’t fly first class on your budget, you never will. Assume that you deserve the best, and try to get it. Sometimes you’ll prevail.
- Exude Confidence. The surer you appear to be about yourself, the surer others will be about you. If you act like you own the place, more often than not you will be treated like the owner.
- Fake it. If you are not confident, you can fake it. You think you aren’t fitting in at an event? Think you’re not qualified for a job? Not worthy of a date with a fabulous person? Shut up about it and pretend that you are. Chances are you are the only one who knows your shortcomings. If you act the part, you may get away with it.
- Never Apologize. The souffle has fallen., You ate the salad with the entree fork. Your sofa has seen better days: So what? Apologies put people on edge. Aplomb in the face of adversity puts people at ease. Friends and strangers will admire you for having the silent courage to showcase your quirks. Smile and keep dancing.
- Be Curious. Read everything. Talk to everyone. Ask questions. The more inquisitive you are, the more information you’ll gather. As the “Schoolhouse Rock” people used to say, knowledge is power.
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raincoaster media 
Roads
July 23, 2007
I found this site whilst browsing the WP.com ‘Promote my Blog’ thread. Really, I don’t know how you do it, Raincoaster, managing to find time to fit in so many things, whilst still contributing so much to WordPress users through the Forums. But thanks.
I agree with you that those are a great set of maxims to take through life.
As a laid-back European, it is sometimes hard to swallow all that sugar-saccharine North American ‘positivity’ schmalz. Dour and stubborn optimism in the face of adversity is certainly more the British style.
And yet perhaps that old management course chestnut: ‘Expectations influence outcomes’ really is entirely true.
The colleague I remember as being promoted the fastest is the one who acted like a manager from the very day he arrived. Sometimes it grated on my nerves, since he was less experienced than many, and yet when he got the team leader position, everyone just nodded – it was an natural fit.
In my experience, the importance of keeping your head up at all times just can’t be overstated.
To use a sporting analogue, the European Ryder Cup golf team has some great players, but on paper is nearly always quite a bit weaker than the Americans. Until 1983, the Europeans always lost – in the certain knowledge of being mere cannon-fodder for the likes of Nicklaus, Watson and many other legends playing against them.
One day, Tony Jacklin became captain. He was one of the very few ever to have beaten the Americans in their own back yard, having won the US Open in 1970 after his so long-awaited victory in the British Open the year before.
Jacklin instilled in his team the first faint belief that they could win their matches.
And even if you can’t, he said, make sure that you walk purposefully down the fairway, ten strides or more ahead of your opponents, with a smile on your face and a spring in your step. Look like you’re winning, and as if you expect to win, even when you are not.
And the funny thing about that story is, that from the day they started doing the ‘Ryder Cup Walk’, the team started to play well above their capabilities. Since then, the Europeans have won more matches than they have lost, despite having ‘inferior’ players.
I always try to remember that approach whenever I’m feeling out of my depth. Not ‘bluffing it’ exactly, but reminding myself that I have a right to be there, and a right to learn.
Success breeds success, but maybe cultivating a certain calm confidence and self-assurance is the very most important step along that road.
I’ve used that ‘Ryder Cup Walk’ many times. It works, since with just one successful step behind you, the rest will nearly always follow.
raincoaster
July 23, 2007
Thanks, Roads, that was a very generous comment. Believe me, I’m not all about the saccharine; I have an edge (just see raincoaster.com for that!). I’m posting half of these because they’re things I need to learn better. Typing them out helps me to internalize them.
I remember what Gloria Steinem said when told she didn’t look sixty. She said, “This is what sixty looks like.” We define ourselves; our circumstances don’t define us. That’s something that the rich can learn as well as the poor, even if they’ve less incentive. And, just like your Ryder Cup story, what we define ourselves as, we often become.
Oscar Wilde said, “All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” I love that quote.
Roads
July 23, 2007
I love that Oscar Wilde quote, too – although I knew it for years without knowing its proper source.
And I spent at least a decade, believing that Chrissie Hynde was (even?) more profound than she really is:
“… In the streets, in the bars
We are all of us in the gutter
But some of us are looking at the stars”
The Pretenders – Message of Love (1981)
brightfeather
July 24, 2007
I loved this post.
raincoaster
July 24, 2007
Glad you liked it. The book is wonderful. Very Big City, but fabulousness, as we all know, is truly boundless.