Toni Graham had a breakdown at 48 that left her £70,000 in debt, weighing 17 and a half stone and generally feeling miserable. Six years later she had enough savings to retire, lost three and a half stone and is enjoying her new “extreme frugalist” lifestyle.
Looking from the outside, when Toni was 48 it was easy to assume she had it all figured out. The Yorkshire native was a working single mum with two kids that had achieved a master’s while her younger daughter was in primary school. She had worked her way up the corporate ladder to senior management in the public sector.
However, Toni’s reality was quickly crumbling. She was spending more than she earned to keep up appearances while also paying legal costs of a drawn out divorce and struggling under the pressure of her work. She shared her story with Money Wellness: “I was living paycheque to paycheque and I wasn’t enjoying life at all, not at all.”
Then things took a turn for the worse when Toni suffered a breakdown that left her unable to work for nine months, and when her colleagues visited it was a shock to all: “People couldn’t believe the state I was in. I looked like a really frail old woman.
“I’d got to 17 and a half stone, I was walking with a stick, my legs were giving way. I was really, really ill. People were shocked when they saw me.”
Feeling like she was at rock bottom, Toni looked for direction and paid £140 for some life coaching sessions which ended up changing her life. When the coach asked what she wanted from the next stage of her life, she jokingly said “to retire”, and he took that literally.
The pair shifted Toni’s unsustainable lifestyle into extreme frugality. She explained: “I’m an extreme frugalist, so that means you don’t just do little bits to save money, you just go full out.”
She managed to bring down her expenses to just £10,000 a year and used the rest of her income to pay off her debts. And she “loved it”.
Among some of her top frugality methods is avoiding shops at all costs, growing her own food and even doing certain diets to cut down on the grocery bill even further. Her and her housemates also ditch the priciest time of year by doing homemade hampers as Christmas gifts.
Toni said: “It’s like probably 200 habits in a day of saving money, like washing your bags out that you’ve had in the freezer, just the tiny little things that you automatically do… saving your fat from your bacon that you’ve cooked or making your own lard, anything, you know, all these little things add up.”
Toni also took every opportunity to increase her income; signing up for overtime, lecturing at her local college on days off, selling unused items. All this extra work “gave me a purpose”.
Six years later, Toni was able to retire and had also lost three and a half stone. She is still leading an extremely frugal lifestyle but one that is healthier and ultimately makes her happier than the clothes, cars and luxuries she was buying on borrowed money.
Toni is about to turn 65 and is currently living on a pension of less than £600 a month, most of which is put into her savings as soon as she receives it. But the cost of living crisis is hitting her like everyone else.
She has taken some extra steps recently to keep the cost down, like doing laundry less often, getting rid of her TV licence by no longer watching live TV and staying in bed more during winter to avoid having the heating on. She added: “We’re doing that intermittent fasting, so we don’t have to eat breakfast.
“We’ll eat from half past ten till half past five, and that’s our window for eating, and that cuts out a meal … That’s the new thing we’ve done this year to save money.”
For others looking to shift into the frugal lifestyle, Toni recommends little changes like switching from liquid soap to bars, that can make a big difference in the long run. She’s also started up a Facebook group for like-minded people and runs her own website too.
She added: “I feel richer now than I’ve ever felt in my life. I have more choice now, I have more freedom now than I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. I’m really happy and I’ve had ten happy years.”
