Timeline for What is a word to describe a lifestyle of few possessions?
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| Jun 15, 2020 at 7:40 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Sep 12, 2017 at 9:01 | comment | added | Tasos Papastylianou | @rackandboneman I think you'd be hard pressed to describe anyone who has a lot as 'frugal' | |
| Sep 12, 2017 at 5:33 | comment | added | rackandboneman | Is frugal not ambitious, as far as it can also mean "has a lot and stays that way by avoiding waste?" | |
| Sep 11, 2017 at 19:00 | comment | added | Fraser | I think that is it - focused on providing only the necessary and nothing more - for it to be a frugal life the items would have to be purely functional, the bare minimum spec...it implies a sense of "going without" that simply having few things doesn't (to my mind at least) - one could have a few high quality top of the range items (laptop, tent, etc) and have a simple but not frugal life. | |
| Sep 11, 2017 at 18:16 | comment | added | Tasos Papastylianou | @Fraser I will admit this is my own understanding and experience, but I don't think frugal has a negative connotation of the penny-pinching sort. I might say that about "thrifty" (which brings images of coupons and thrift-shops in mind), but not about "frugal". In my mind, a frugal person is one who does not delight in luxury and is instead focused on providing only the necessary, no more, but also no less. I.e. it implies the absence of embellishments (esp in the context of clothing / art), but does not imply undergoing hardship or expending obsessive amounts of energy aimed at being 'cheap'. | |
| Sep 11, 2017 at 17:47 | comment | added | Fraser | +1 My first thought too...although on reflection I think frugal strongly implies penny pinching, being sparing, buying cheap, etc - rather than simply having few possessions - that could well be expensive or even high-end luxury items (laptop, geodesic dome, etc). To my mind a frugal life is always simple, but a simple life isn't always frugal. | |
| Sep 9, 2017 at 18:35 | comment | added | Tasos Papastylianou | Having said that, having seen your example sentence, the word that would come to my mind would simply be "non-materialistic". This seems to address all your requirements. As for spartan, btw, I don't like it as the answer to this question; to me it almost has the connotation of forced structure and discipline, but in a manner opposite to the piously religious one, as if one relishes and takes pride in forcefully extricating themselves from possessions (rather than simply not desiring them). But this doesn't sound anything like what I'd imagine Ms. Hilgers from the rest of the sentence. | |
| Sep 9, 2017 at 18:29 | history | answered | Tasos Papastylianou | CC BY-SA 3.0 |