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I was talking with a friend about how the downturn in the stock market was impacting people who have built up wealth mainly via relying on their (seemingly) every-growing portfolio of investments. I commented that people who choose to live simply are essentially unaffected by such a troubling market. Choosing a life a voluntary simplicity means you’ve already chosen to live humbly below your means. You don’t rely on phantom dollars. You rely on concrete calculations of income and expenditures. Your income is diversified and so are your savings. And lo and behold on the heels of this conversation I find this article in the 2009 March-April Simple Living News: Recession-Proof: Voluntary Simplicity As The Key To Living Well Even In A Recession. The author closes the article with this comment:

I think Henry David Thoreau summed up the key to living recession-proof when he said, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”

How true that is. The more we leave alone, the more we can enjoy the truly valuable things in life.

Frugal – economical in use or expenditure; prudently saving or sparing; not wastefulVoluntary Simplicity – a lifestyle that is less pressured due to a focus away from accumulation of goods and more toward non-material aspects of life

I recently unsubbed from a Yahoo! group whose purpose was to discuss frugal living specifically for people who don’t have children at home. It started out a good group. Unfortunately, one particular member hijacked the group and turned it into a whine-fest about lack of funds and how expensive everything is getting. I’m just not interested in that sort of negative discussion.

I believe in being frugal and I believe in voluntary simplicity as a lifestyle. However, I hold these values by choice, not because there’s not enough money to buy groceries or pay the mortgage. Frugality and simplicity have nothing to do with poverty. You could be on that Forbes 400 list of the richest people and choose to live a frugal, simple life. There’s a big difference in choosing frugality and being forced into frugality. The first is a freeing lifestyle choice. The second is a prison of want.

Definitions from Dictionary.com