The Wisdom of Frugality with Emrys Westacott- Ep 72

A fun (and sometimes funny) conversation about frugality? Heck yes, friends, because this is Crazy Money!

Emrys Westacott is the author of The Wisdom of Frugality and professor of Philosophy at Alfred University. In addition to courses on ethics, happiness and logic, Emrys teaches an Honors seminar called Tightwaddery, or The Good Life on a Dollar a Day in which students hunt for bargains at yard sales, cut each other’s hair, and cook a banquet composed of meals that cost about a dollar to prepare. One student’s recipe was called “Apple Crisp and how to pilfer your ingredients from the dining hall (which suggests she might not have gotten an “A+” in Emrys’ Ethics class). The Daily Beast named Tightwaddery one of America’s “Hottest College Courses” and CNN called it one of “22 Fascinating and Bizarre College Classes.”

Emrys' work on the topic of frugality centers around a few important questions:

What does it mean to live the good life?

Can frugality actually make you happier?

And--while we’re at it--what does frugality even mean?

In today’s episode, Emrys and I discuss what Stoicism, Buddhism, the Epicureans, and Christianity can teach us about getting the most out of life by knowing what we want from our money. We touch on Puritanism, Transcendentalism, Neo-liberalism, Quarantine, the FIRE movement, and some other books you might want to check out (The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett and The Happiness Curve by Jonathan Rauch). Yes, this is a rollicking intellectual soirée, and you are invited!

I know you’ll enjoy Emrys' vast knowledge of the philosophical schools and refined sense of humor (by which I mean he laughed at most of my jokes). Find out more about Emrys and his work on his website and on 3 Quarks Daily.

Read Paul's latest essays on Medium.

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Produced and edited by Mike Carano.

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Did you know a lot of podcast episode descriptions are purposefully over-written just to cram in a bunch of keywords to make them discoverable inside the podcast apps? But since you're still here, I’ll let you know that upcoming episodes will address coronavirus, inequality, the wealth gap, my new Peloton, Covid-19, whether Cialis Trump (s) Viagra, the asbestos -like qualities of certain insurance products, wellness, mindfulness, black lives matter, social media, Oprah, Wall Street, refinancing, Taylor Swift ’s net worth, pandemic, quarantine, weight loss, diets, get rich, make money while you sleep.