Frugal is the new cool. . . .

I began my frugal journey over a year ago, when I became sick and tired of feeling as if I was working for my credit card companies instead of for myself (read Your Money or Your Life to learn what inspired me). Now that the economy has tanked and people are losing their jobs and homes, it seems that frugality is becoming popular in a way I never imagined!

According to Paul Harris, a columnist with the London Guardian, the recession is changing the very fabric of society in the United States. Whereas we've striven for 'bigger and better' over the past 30 years (in everything from cars to cookies), we as a nation are beginning to see that the culture of overconsumption was not only bad for our environment and our waistlines, it has wreaked havoc with our collective pocketbooks.

"Frugal is the new cool, putting an end to hyper-consumption. The orgy of credit card abuse is over. A website called Debt Proof Living launched a daily email tipsheet last summer which now has 100,000 subscribers. Oprah Winfrey forsook her annual holiday list of expensive gift suggestions in favour of more modest "favourite things". Salons and spas are seeing customers desert them as women pamper themselves on the cheap at home."

While Harris ties this new culture of frugality to the ascendancy of Barack Obama, I believe thriftiness and simple living concepts would have been just as powerful under a McCain presidency. After all, our economy is in the toilet and will remain so for quite some time, regardless of who is living in the White House. The financial metamorphosis that we are undergoing is a result of the crash in the housing market, among other things, and would have been inevitable no matter the outcome of the election.

It is possible, though, that President Obama will become the new symbol of living within one's means (although the recent bailout package seems to fly in the face of this notion). I'm hopeful that this ginormous injection of capital (translation: credit) into the country's coffers will enable us as a nation to become more frugal at the government level. Perhaps the New York Times columnist Bob Herbert says it best when he tells us to "Stop being stupid". I only hope our government will take the time to read and digest Mr. Herbert's message of economic intelligence, as so many individual Americans have done (and continue to do in greater and greater numbers).