From frugal to frivolous

Will take out coffee be my downfall?

Coffee from Birch café in Portress, Isle of Skye

Hello, I’m Molly, a full time creative based in the Scottish Highlands. Subscribers can enjoy weekly posts around the themes of slow living, thriving in a creative career, books & nature. Members get access to ALL my work, including video tea times, slow letters and seasonal book reviews.

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‘That’s £4 please’.

Without hesitation, I pull out my debit card and tap the familiar card reader. And, as if by magic, within minutes my perky orange Hydroflask is returned with a freshly brewed coffee inside.

The first mouthful is always a delight. Closing my eyes in appreciation, I roll the rich coffee over my delighted tastebuds. Yet, I can’t deny that there is that familiar twang of guilt that comes with spending my money on such a ‘frivolous’ purchase.

Coffee, especially good coffee, comes with a price. Arguably, there are much better ways that I could spend this £4.

This sum could buy me a new outfit or a couple of books from my local charity shop. It could easily cover a batch of lentil soup, that would do me for all my weekday lunches. Perhaps even cover a monthly subscription to a favourite Substack writer.

I have always been proud of my frugal nature. It is something that seems to have been passed down the female line in my family. I’ve watched my mother and grandmother hold onto their pennies, choosing to go without rather than ‘waste’ their money on what was deemed unnecessary.

My mother often tells me stories of her grandmother, and I’ve gathered that she was much the same. Apparently, she would always take a picnic if going for a day out and had to bake a loaf of bread every time the oven went on.

I learnt the knack of keeping hold of my money fairly young, which was essential when it came to completing months of unpaid volunteer placements (when I was working towards a career in wildlife conservation) and the shift towards being a full time creative (where income is notoriously unpredictable).

My mantra has always been that nothing is as important as the peace of mind that comes with having savings. This gives me a sense of freedom that I value above all else.

But over the last year or so, as I’ve become settled in my self-employed status, I’ve gradually started to loosen the reins of my frugal nature.

When I started drinking coffee (having previously been mostly a tea drinker), I restricted myself to one a week. This would cover me working in a café, which, as someone who spends a lot of time at home, I’d recognised was important for my mental health and productivity.

For a while, this worked. Until it didn’t.

In addition to working from a café, getting take-out coffee after completing my Saturday morning food shop has become a weekly ritual. I love meeting friends at cafes and it’s become a regular date option with my partner. Whenever I’m away in my wee camper van, coffee becomes a daily treat as I love exploring new cafes.

Now, it’s not uncommon for me to have 2 or even 3 coffees a week. Despite this sum making my inner penny pincher twitch in discomfort, when I really started to reflect, I found that my conscience was clean.

I’ve realised that being frugal doesn’t mean restricting all purchases or living with the bare minimum. Instead, it’s about being intentional and identifying where you can pull back and when spending money adds value to your life.

In many ways, I’m still very frugal.

I rarely eat out or get takeaway, preferring to cook my own meals from scratch. I have a minimal wardrobe, with most of my clothing being second hand. Although my main hobby is reading, I rarely buy new books, instead opting to thrift titles or borrow them from my local library.

I limit subscriptions, work with the bare minimum technology, don’t drink alcohol, never buy home décor items and most of my travel is limited to van trips, where all I need to pay for is fuel and food (that I cook in the van).

I even seek ways to reduce my coffee outgoings, by bringing my own flask whenever I get a take-out (which reduces waste and usually means I get a discount) and have various loyalty cards that add up to a free drink (this is always an exciting day!)

I’ve even set up a ‘buy me a coffee’ page as a way for readers to support my work (massive thank you to everyone who has already done so, I’ve honestly been blown away by the generosity of this beautiful community 💚).

I love that this habit means I get to support local businesses. So much so that one of my most frequent haunts now knows my order by heart, which never fails to put a smile on my face.

I like to view life as a compilation of small moments. In this way, treating myself to a beautifully crafted coffee is a perfectly reasonable outgoing that adds a small point of pleasure to my day.

I hope you allow yourself a small treat today, whatever that may look like to you, and remember to savour every second of it. You so deserve it.

Until next week,

Molly xx

More from my slow life

What frugal living ACTUALLY looks like

How I’ve built my dream life

Habits from my ‘low-screen’ life