As an outsider to this community, I am curious as to your positioning in terms of ethics.
It seems to me that there isn’t really any ideology underlying the frugalist movement, and that it’s rather born out of pragmatism. But maybe you can prove me wrong.
It seems to me that the proposition is egocentric, essentially relying on others to sustain itself. I can’t see how this lifestyle could work out if a majority would adopt it: who would take care of cleaning the streets, take care of our health and educate our children?
Also, I can’t help but notice that the blog lists broad-spectrum ETF as one of the main investments strategy, which basically means investing in the existing system without taking any sides. For instance, VT is composed of petroleum investments which clearly keeps the status quo regarding the climate crisis. So can you confirm that there isn’t any proposal of nudging the economy into a different place?
I understood the argument of devoting your time to charities “afterwards”. So that would hint to a “lesser evil” strategy maybe? But this doesn’t click for me: why not starting now while you’re young, healthy (and alive btw), asking for a sabbatical for instance? It’s also a bit troubling to me to fund this “charity-time” on the existing economical system, with all its imperfections. If improving the situation is an objective, I think that turning the economy into something closer to fairness and sustainability has more leverage. To some extent, I even think that it’s a responsibility for us Swiss citizens to at least attempt to take advantage of our privileges and the quality education we have received to use it for a worthy goal while we can.
If your jobs are boring - how about risking less pay for something more fun? work or create a startup close to your values, launch into politics, following whatever your calling is but do it now?
Another recurrent motivation I noticed is this notion of spending more time with the kids - but how does this work exactly? When you’ll be 40, your kids will have mostly grown past the years that require your attention. At 15 years of age, the reality is that children mostly prefer spending time with their friends, not their parents.
Thanks for enlightening me if I’m missing something