Frugality and Ethical Living

photo credit: tricky ™

Two lifestyle choices I’m trying to pursue at present are frugality and ethical living. I want to live economically, retaining as much of my money as possible to make it work for me. I’m also trying to live more ethically, principally by reducing my impact on the environment (more on that here).

I’ve realised there is often a tension between these two things. For example, I’ve read what happens to battery and even free range hens. So I want organic eggs. Spendy. I don’t want sweatshop clothing, and now I can get fairtrade garments on the high street. I want those instead. Ka-ching. I want eco-friendly cleaning products, not the chemical cocktail in the luridly coloured bottle. Wallet-tastic.

But being frugal, I want to cut costs where possible. I look at my grocery bill and guess I could save maybe 25% by buying not even the cheapo alternatives but the mass-market, regular versions of the more ethical products I buy.

Happily, many ethical living decisions will actually save you money in the long run, such as driving less or buying low energy lightbulbs. In these cases the decision is easy. But many cost more. It’s a fact of life that if you’re on a limited income, your priority is rightly going to be making your money go as far as possible. Hopefully though you’ll take the ethical route when it’s also cheaper.

If not on a low income, what’s a frugal guy to do? Sell out and save money? Or pick up the inflated bill for going ethical? As ever in life, the answer lies in compromise. For each time the question of going frugal or going ethical arises, I’ve come up with some ways to help me decide:

• Set a percentage premium you’re willing to pay to live ethically: this is the most flexible option and you can vary the percentage according to your means. Around 10% shouldn’t hit your wallet too hard.

• Stock up on ethical items when they’re on special: don’t take this to extremes, only buy what you can use without it expiring, but if your favoured fairtrade organic coffee is two for the price of one, buy, buy, buy!

• Cut out the item altogether: having informed myself on animal welfare issues, I switched to buying organic or free range meat. My conscience was salved but my wallet flinched. The premium on ethical meat is high. Not by design, but I’m now pretty much vegetarian so I don’t buy meat at all. Dilemma solved and money saved, but clearly not everyone will want to go to such lengths. You could consider buying ‘happy’ meat, but eating less often.

• Look for an alternative: bright pink and green-packaged super duper cleaner, or minimally packaged low impact but high margin eco-cleaner? Neither. Make your own from vinegar, bicarbonate of soda and lemon juice. See this list at MoneySavingExpert.com for recipes.

• Create your own offset scheme: you can be scientific about this or take a wild guess. For example, decide you’ll allow yourself to continue taking your beloved extra-long showers in exchange for working to increase your miles per gallon by driving more smoothly (ways to do this from the UK Department for Transport here)

Now you can be ethical and frugal, or a tight hippy, depending on your viewpoint. For me, these ideas have helped take intelligent decisions in reconciling ethical living and frugality. Let me know in the comments if you’ve tried anything similar or have more ideas.

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