Jun 2, 2026 · 24 min · 10 segments
In which Joshua explains why he was wrong about frugality and your goal should be to spend more money, not less. Enjoy! Joshua Sponsor: come hang out with me at Nomad Capitalist Live, November 4-7…
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Today on the podcast, I wanna share with you some ideas related to the idea of cost.
Now, one thing I find interesting about having talked about money for a very long time and having done most of it on the record is I am continually forced to confront my own ideas and ask myself the question of, "Is this thing that I believe true or not? Is this thing that I have said still true or not true?" In the early days of Radical Personal Finance, I was a pretty hardcore advocate of frugality, and frankly, fairly extreme forms of frugality.
Really hardcore on, uh, I remember one of the podcasts that I was just so excited to do was probably like episode three or something, where I went through dozens, perhaps even hundreds of ways to save money on everything in your life.
The truth that frugality seems to be a pathway to wealth, and yet as I have gone on, I have seen that frugality sometimes does not work out.
And I have had to abandon many of my own frugal ways in exchange for a different philosophy, a different mindset related to money.
For example, I do believe that frugality is basically universally true as long as we apply the lens of scale to the questions of frugality.
But over the past couple of years, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this statement, that cost is a feature and not a bug.
And that's coming from someone who generally doesn't have that many luxury consumption predilections.
Today on the podcast, I wanna share with you some ideas related to the idea of cost.
Now, one thing I find interesting about having talked about money for a very long time and having done most of it on the record is I am continually forced to confront my own ideas and ask myself the question of, "Is this thing that I believe true or not? Is this thing that I have said still true or not true?" In the early days of Radical Personal Finance, I was a pretty hardcore advocate of frugality, and frankly, fairly extreme forms of frugality.
Really hardcore on, uh, I remember one of the podcasts that I was just so excited to do was probably like episode three or something, where I went through dozens, perhaps even hundreds of ways to save money on everything in your life.
The truth that frugality seems to be a pathway to wealth, and yet as I have gone on, I have seen that frugality sometimes does not work out.
And I have had to abandon many of my own frugal ways in exchange for a different philosophy, a different mindset related to money.
For example, I do believe that frugality is basically universally true as long as we apply the lens of scale to the questions of frugality.
But over the past couple of years, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this statement, that cost is a feature and not a bug.
And that's coming from someone who generally doesn't have that many luxury consumption predilections.
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