Frugalminimalist - a blog about finance and happy living

Hi Steemians! Let me (re)introduce myself as this is my second account here on steemit...My other account is @rootcoder, but because I wanted to start over again with a different theme I started this one here. My name is Florian, I’m 24 years old and I come from Germany. I’m a trained IT Admin but at the moment I’m a fulltime student and side hustler as well as a frugal minimalist (more about that later). I like sports, programming and talking about finance (including crypto of course). On this blog I will document my journey of becoming "financially independent" by living a frugal minimalist life with the goal to inspire people along the way. So if you are interested in finance education or minimalism or you just want to follow me along my way, feel free to follow me.

My (financial) background

I was fortunate enough to grew up in relatively good circumstances ( in terms of money). My family is what you would consider a middle class family. We weren’t rich but not poor either. Money was never an issue for us. This is mostly due to my father and he also inspired me to the frugal living lifestyle. He always saved around 45% of his income to invest in stocks , he was able to pay off the mortgage of our house, which he mostly build by himself, in a very short period of time and he always thought twice if he really needed a new mobile phone or television. Now he is able to work less and can probably retire by the age of 53. But because he loves his job I’m not to sure if he really will. He taught me that I don’t need a nice car, expensive clothes or the newest iPhone to live a happy life. And there’s another thing that he taught me and I think this is really important, for him money was never the most important. He loves to give back and always helps out family members without expecting them to pay him back and he also donates a good amount of money to charities each year. For me a true inspiration.

Influenced by my dad I was always a frugal person without knowing what frugal actually meant. As a child I got pocket money from my parents, but instead of just getting the money each week, I had to “work” for it. My parents kind of rewarded me for helping out in the household. To keep track of my work they made a tally list. Each time I helped with the cooking or helped cleaning, doing laundry, laid the table etc. I got a tally which was worth around € 0.25. Back then I hated that system because all my other friends they either got their pocket money each week without putting in the “work” or their parents just gave them what they wanted anyway. Now as I grew up I believe this method affected my life and the way I handle money tremendously.

At the age of 17 I started an apprenticeship as an IT-Specialist which took 3 years and I was able to earn my first “real” money. Apprenticeships in Germany are quite common and you are able to earn a bit of money while learning the profession. I earned about € 850 per month for the 3 years and I was able to save around 70% of it, because I still lived with my parents at the time and spend my time mostly at home, I had almost no expenses. At the age of 23 I accumulated a lot of money in my bank account and I got interested in saving/investing. First I discovered stocks and made some investments in ETFs and stocks/bonds. In October 2016 I also started to invest some money into Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies.

Frugal living vs minimalism ?

Although frugality and minimalism are in fact two different things I would consider myself both. But what does it mean? In a nutshell Minimalism is about wanting to own less stuff while Frugalism is about spending less money.

A minimalist is someone who owns stuff that he a) really needs or b) are of value to him. They possess fewer, but high quality items which can improve their lives. The focus of minimalism is to find happiness by decluttering and focusing on the really important things in life. (which is not things/clutter).

Frugal living on the other hand is a way of life that focuses on spending less. If they go shopping they also try to find the best price for their money, so they often go shopping using coupons or buying things at sale.
Although minimalism and frugality are indeed two different things, they can work very well together.

Money Money Money

Its all about the money, right? Money takes an important role in our modern capitalistic system and we all or at least most of us need it in order to survive. But how much money do we really need? Do we really need the big car, the big house, the newest mobile phone, that many clothes? If we think about it for a while probably not - most of the time we are just to busy with consumption so we don’t have the time to focus on the important things in life. Financial independence seems like a big thing and not achievable with an average paid job - but if you make it clear how much money you really need it becomes more attainable. I believe if you deploy patiences and hard work and you are using the right investment strategy it is possible even if you are earning an average salary. And remember the most beautiful things in life are not associated with money. All the money in the world can buy a lot of things but it can't buy you love, health or happiness.