Being frugal is the new “cool” among young people in China, as they take to social media to flaunt how they are able to live with the least bit of expense.
Known as “proudly stingy,” many young Chinese men and women are taking pride at the ways that they get to minimize their expenses while living contentedly. The trending movement was brought about by a series of economic factors, among them are the rising cost of living, uncertainty in the economy, and a very competitive and tough job market, which left many young people finding themselves jobless.
According to Malay Mail, while food in China are actually cheaper as compared to the U.S., young people are still going out of their way to save on their expenses, and doing so is viewed as the “cool” way to go.
One platform, Xiaohongshu, which boasts of 300 million active users, has been the ultimate hub of those who would like to share their frugal living. The platform allows users to document the costs of their daily meals, and users could see the monthly total expenditures. There are those who aim to only spend 500 yuan (68.66 USD) on food in a month.
Many participants of this very popular trend consider the action not as a method of sacrifice but more of finding positive and less costly approaches to money-spending.
One member of the young generation in China who shared her experience was Xue Yang, who relayed to The Washington Post how she got in on the “proudly stingy” trend. She revealed that she lost her job and was only living off on savings and severance pay. Realizing a bleak job market lay ahead, she opted to join the challenge of not spending more than 500 yuan on food per month.
Xue said that after taking up the challenge, she felt that she was “spending two-thirds less” than when she had a job. If she used to go for food delivery twice a day, which cost her at least 60 yuan ($8), that has changed drastically, and the same amount could now last her for four days.
Another participant was Zhao Yongfang who also embraced the challenge while she was working in Beijing. Zhao admitted that she initially thought it would not work since it is quite unimaginable to live on less than 20 yuan a day in a first-class city.
However, she later discovered that it was doable. Instead of eating out or ordering meals, she opted to cook her own dishes. Thus, her dinners became more affordable and she started seeing feasibility behind frugality.
With this challenge growing very popular in China, it will not take long until it will be adopted in neighboring countries, and worldwide.
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