NeoFrugal Notebook

Hello, welcome to my new weblog, NeoFrugal Notebook; a resource for changing financial lives.  I’m Jeff, I’ll be discovering practical ways for imperfect people to change their financial situations for the better.  I’ll be curator of information, oftentimes serve as a cautionary tale, and typically be the guinea pig “imperfect person” trying to change something.

I’m quite sure there are people using the term neofrugal to mean something specific: I admit I was shocked to see I could buy the neofrugal.com domain.  But since I could, I feel free to establish my own definition.  For me the new frugality has three aspects: eliminating waste, maximizing value, and enlarging your life.  Eliminating waste is pretty obvious, the most similar to traditional thriftiness.  We’ve all been made aware over the years that some bargains aren’t really bargains, but maximizing value is also beginning to incorporate the notion that some things are worth an extra expense.  Enlarging your life is a concept that will become more clear as we go, but in a nutshell it’s the recognition that “some things are worth an extra expense” for reasons that extend beyond your own life and preferences.

Every week, I will be making three new posts in the NeoFrugal Notebook, each focusing on one aspect of eliminating waste, maximizing value, and enlarging life, in turn.  I’ll also do reader mailbag posts every so often, increasing in frequency should any presupposed reader mail me anything.  There will also be regular posts on various financial projects or processes I’m working through, and links of interesting reading.

Which begs the question of how this is going to be any different from any number of other personal finance blogs out there.  I’ve written professionally in the past.  I’ve confronted some uncomfortable realities of my own situation, have maintained a sense of humor about it, and am willing to dish on myself in the hopes that a bad example can serve as a lesson.  I’m determined to make a set of changes in my own life, and am willing to document methods and techniques that succeed and fail for me.  All of which, it seems, still fails to clearly differentiate me from the herd.

What it’s really going to come down to is whether or not I’m able to reach someone new with my efforts.  I have to make a change in my own financial life, and if I can help someone also make a change in their financial life, so much the better.  I hope my experiences can educate, my struggles can warn, and my successes can inspire.  And I hope you enjoy it.