Frugal homemaking has been my thing for years. Only recently have I realized that it fits perfectly with my neurodivergent brain. Here are four compelling reasons you need to understand why.
The story.
Looking around my small living room, I nodded with satisfaction. A comfy loveseat sat against the wall, a rocking chair nearby, a wicker coffee table in front of the loveseat and a matching wicker armchair in the corner. Along one of the adjacent walls stood a bookcase, and against the wall across from the loveseat was a small T.V. stand with my television sitting on top.
The end result had taken several years to come together. It reflected my eclectic taste as well as my thirst for a bargain. Not counting the T.V., the sum total of everything in my living room hadn’t been more than $300, probably even less. That was frugal even for the late 1990s.
At the time I thought I was just being cheap. Or, during times I was kinder to myself, financially cautious. More than twenty years would pass before I realized my frugal homemaking tendency was playing a large part in my overall well-being as a neurodivergent woman.
Frugal homemaking: an integral part of simple living.
My goal on this blog is to encourage autistic women and women with ADHD to live as simply as possible so that they can more easily keep their touchy nervous systems in check, as well as deal with fewer executive function blips.
In other words, I want to help my fellow neurodivergent women to be happier and healthier (especially those older than forty-five).
Part of simple living is frugal living, including learning to create and maintain a beautiful home on a budget. Specific how-to’s are listed in this article.
Right now, I want to explain why I believe that frugal homemaking is particularly important for neurodivergent women.
Reason #1: Saving money reduces stress.
This is the biggest and most obvious reason. Due to our glitchy nervous systems, we carry a lot more stress than other women. As one of the primary causes of stress in the life of a Westerner, regardless of brain type, is money, we should learn to dial back our spending.
But being frugal with home furnishings and accessories is tricky. From every side, it seems, photos and videos of upscale, expensive furniture gracing gorgeous living and dining rooms bombard our vision. And because women are wired to “nest,” resisting the temptation to buy brand-new, costly furniture sets can be difficult.
I urge you to resist the temptation. Using consignment and thrift stores, along with big box home stores, you can put together a home as beautiful as those on magazine covers an in interior design videos while spending a fraction of the money.
Reason #2: We need the creative expression.
It doesn’t take any level of creativity to walk into a furniture store and buy a matching set of bookcases and side tables along with a bland sofa and generic armchairs. For a creative person, the process is tedious and boring, and the end result is even worse because you have to live with it.
Visiting multiple thrift and antique stores, with a few home accessory stores – and even a (SHOCK!) visit to Walmart thrown in – is a horse of a different color. The variety sparks our creativity, challenges us to think outside of the box while we imagine how each piece will fit inside our home and with each other. So the process of furnishing and accessorizing a home feeds our innate desire to be creative, especially when we create the accessories ourselves.
It’s also a heckuva lot more fun than the standard way. Oops, but I’m getting ahead of myself…
Reason #3 that frugal homemaking should be a goal for neurodivergent women: Dopamine and endorphins.
Many autistic people, as well as those with ADHD, are sorely lacking in some of the brain’s neurotransmitters that help us to feel good and happy. Two of those are dopamine and endorphins.
Not only does the joy of finding beautiful, stylish bargains enhance the production of these chemicals, but also the simple act of walking into a room with the carefully curated pieces often re-ignites the good feelings.
Reason #4 frugal homemaking should be a goal for neurodivergent women: it teaches patience.
Autistic women may not need this lesson so much. But those of us with ADHD or AuDHD? Yeah. We kinda sorta aren’t known for our patience.
However, when we determine (notice I said WHEN, not IF) to be frugal homemakers, when we get a revelation on good it is for both our bank accounts and our souls – not to mention our sanity – taking our time in furnishing and accessorizing our home helps us to learn to be more patient in other areas of life.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Just don’t ask my husband about my level of patience. Please.
No, seriously, there is currently a blank space on a bookcase where I envision a vintage tumbler filled with dried flowers. I’m determined to put nothing else there until I find what I want.
See? I can be patient! See?
A-hem, okay, onto being serious again…
Reason #5: It’s easier to turn your home into a sanctuary.
As neurodivergent women, we need our homes not to be just the place where we eat and sleep, but to be sanctuaries from the big, bad world around us. And each of us has different needs, needs which a cookie-cutter living or dining room set can’t meet.
Some of us need comfortable rocking chairs.
Others of us crave the coziness of a bean bag chair.
Then there are those who require a sofa that has cushions as soft as puffy, white clouds and a color equally as calming.
No furniture or big box home store is going to carry everything we need. And often vintage finds are more likely to meet our sensory needs than modern styles.
Thus, doing things the frugal homemaker way gives us a better chance of creating a space that will nourish both our souls and our senses.
Frugal homemaking is fun!
Once you get into frugal homemaking, your imagination will keep giving you ideas, while your practical side shows you how to save money with those ideas. And you will end up with a beautiful home that is also relaxing, cozy, and rejuvenating.
