Frugal Utopia

Frugal Utopia: Savings and Health, by Elroy and Carmela Worner, is an empowering book that describes how rethinking our personal finances can create a better and healthier future for everyone. The book is divided into two parts, each of which emphasizes an essential element of personal freedom. Part I explains how we are only truly free if we have savings, how spending less is the easiest way to get there, and how frugal lifestyles let us feel rich without much money, by consuming more experiences and less "stuff." Part II explains how living frugally also frees us to focus on our health and invest in our most precious material things: our bodies-the vehicles that carry us to life's prospects. Today's tough world-with its increasing economic inequality, population, and competition-is getting ever more complicated and stressful. Our best hope for a harmonious world may be to live more frugally and simply-valuing time, relationships, experiences, and health more than over-indulgence in both spending and health habits. Frugal Utopia stands out from the crowd by advocating less monetary ambition and valuing time over money as key ingredients to personal success. The first half of the book urges readers to stay out of debt and build personal savings, because only then is a person truly free. Only then can we spend less time taking orders from sometimes unethical bosses, and more time among family, friends, and nature, and be free to pursue wisdom. The second half recognizes that wealth without health is useless, and promotes personal enrichment through actively giving our bodies what they need. With efficient, capable bodies, more of life's adventures become available to us. Also included in the book are 103 useful tips for saving time and money and for getting or staying fit. This is the first book of what will be the Frugal Utopia trilogy. Frugal Utopia 2 will envision how a less monetary society could be a more equal one. Frugal Utopia 3 will explore how less ravenous consumption can protect and sustain the biosphere to which we belong.