It may just be harder to see the REAL reasons.

In case you missed them, there are 23 Frugal Tips from the Great Depression You Need to Know, of which at least five are simply out of reach for many people these days:

• 1. Make your own cleaning products
• 3. Grow your own produce
• 7. Make food from scratch
• 11. Learn to make simple repairs around the house
• 12. Learn how to upcycle furniture pieces

What is important is to understand the REAL reasons why this happens. I’m sure that many will instinctively answer “I just have NO TIME to do that stuff! Not after being away from home 40 / 50 hours a week just to stay a working poor!”

That’s true, but the reason I’m talking about is another, that remains true even for most unemployed or part-time workers, at least the urban ones..

The easy reason: no right to repair, coupled with USELESS electronics

One big reason why most of us can’t apply the tips above is that everything with a chip inside is unrepairable at home, or anywhere else. Even without that chip wasn’t really necessary in the first place You may need hard to find tools just to diagnose a fault in your “smart” fridge, TV or dishwasher, and just to find that it’s cheaper to buy a new one.

The harder-to-see, but even more common reason

The other, no: the MAIN reason why most of us can’t be frugal in all those 23 ways is even worst, because it applies to almost everything we own or use, not just electric or electronic goods.

Look at those tips again:

• 1. Make your own cleaning products
• 3. Grow your own produce
• 7. Make food from scratch
• 11. Learn to make simple repairs around the house
• 12. Learn how to upcycle furniture pieces

One big reason why, at least with most people who live in cities, that stuff never happens anymore, and never could regardless of time, money or good will is extremely simple: lack of space. That’s the sad, dumb truth hidden in plain sight:

Today, being frugal takes space that only the “rich” can buy

Learning to use a table saw and finding the money to buy it is relatively easy and probably still affordable for most people in western societies.

But goods like sewing machines or power tools, let alone vegetable gardens or table saws… are simply not affordable, even if they came for free, when the only place to store them when idle (that is, almost always 99.999% of the time) is the same one, tiny cabinet that is already full of clothes, shoes or suitcases (more on this below).

And even if one had access to enough money for a house with an extra room or closet, spending it just to play carpenter or tailor once per decade would hardly make sense, would it now? (*)

Travel is the new frugal. Not “making”

Here in Rome, the number of people who can afford a weekend in Paris, or a week snorkeling in Sharm El Sheik is way, way higher than that of those who can afford any toolshed where they could build or fix their own furniture with their own tools. And from what I hear, it’s pretty much the same in most of the western world.

I am NOT happy with this. Fact is, (too) much advice on “being frugal” and saving money is just the 21st version of the story that rich people save money because they can buy one 500$ pair of boots that will last 20 years, while the poor can and must only spend 50 $/year on boots that last one year.

Being frugal can be very expensive. It always was, it’s just that today it starts from housing costs.

_(*) Incidentally, this is the same thing that happened with encyclopedias. Umberto Eco, a famous and surely wealthy italian intellectual, once said something like “I could afford buying [some famous encyclopedia in ~100 volumes], but I’m already out of bookshelfs, and could never afford buying a bigger house with space for even one more library”.