Am I Frugal, or Am I Just Cheap?
By: Fraidycat Finance
Tags: Personal Finance, Frugal, Choices, Money, Cheap

Photo by Kevin McCutcheon on Unsplash

I’ve always liked the Henry David Thoreau quote, “I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”

It speaks to the fact that living the life that fits you best shouldn’t be about having what the rest of the world says is “best.”

I remember walking in Barcelona and seeing that, rather than being in awe of the Parc Guell lizard statues, I was in dismay at how the entire area was crowded with people attempting to fill up their phones with photos of them with the lizards.

I had a much better time walking street markets and eating tasty dinner in a less tourist-filled neighborhood… and I’m sure the local residents were happy that there were only a few tourists (me and my friend) in their area.

This is how I draw a distinction between cheap and frugal: there are many strategies for “spending less” that I’d actually put more in the cheap side of things, while frugality is a combination word.

Cheap is a pursuit of low-cost in the moment, without a lot of thought to the consequences. It’s low-expenses for low-expenses sake.

Frugal is a longer-term, low-cost strategy, one where you take into account the lifecycle of the product, the happiness it brings per dollar spent, and the way it fits into your other values.

(I know, these aren’t technical definitions. Work with me here! We need distinctions to help us make financial choices, even arbitrary ones.)

My best example is with shoes. I had a cheap approach for years: buy the cheapest shoes at the cheapest stores, and know in my heart that they’ll become unpleasant looking through wear and tear within months and be actually non-functional (gaping holes, worn-through soles) within a year.

A friend recommended a pair of high-quality, sustainable, comfortable ballet flats after she’d worn them for a world travel journey that lasted a full year. She said they were machine washable and were back to nearly new after a wash. It sounded so good… but they were five times more expensive than my cheap shoes.

At the moment, I felt like buying them was lavish. But now, 3.5 years later, with the same pair of shoes that has looked good and been comfortable all that time, I’m starting to think that I made a better call than I thought. If they continue to last, it might even have been a frugal choice.

This distinction is only meaningful if you’ve got some wiggle room in your budget: for a long time, both I and many of those I care about could only choose the lowest cost item so that they could purchase the essentials of their lives. It’s a sucky cycle, but it’s not any person’s fault and is often both the cheap and the frugal choice. So if you’re just getting by and making sacrifices just to get the lowest-cost items, you’re doing the best possible in a hard situation!

Once I had a little wiggle room, though, and therefore more choices to make about how “good” a shoe to buy or how nice of an area to live in, that’s where this distinction became important to me.

These are the four questions I ask myself to try to figure out whether my latest spending strategies are cheap or frugal. Because a new goal of mine is not to be cheap, heedless of the long-term effects of buying the lowest-cost item, I use these questions to guide me to neither overspend but also not to underspend at the moment only to have to buy something else later.

Is this way of spending moving me toward my goals?

If you’ve grown up economizing, as I did in my family, you know that families tend to decide on a suite of brands that are their brands. In the states, some families are Target families; some families are Walmart families; some families are wealthy enough to never darken those doors, focusing on high-end grocery stores and department stores for their goods.

Because I grew up in a Kmart/Aldi/Big Lots family, I have an ingrained sense of when something is a good bargain, but it doesn’t steer me right all the time. For instance, I want to actually learn about environmental impacts, and I’m making better money than in the past, so I try to find a more environmentally gentle laundry detergent when shopping that aisle rather than the lowest-quality, lowest-price laundry suds. I’ve developed sensitive skin, which I learned a few years back, and that motivates me further.

This question is where I turn when I have two options that are both technically within the budget, but one is cheaper, and one is in some way “better,” a way that aligns with my values. I want to have comfortable skin and a lower environmental impact, so yep, buying the more expensive detergent moves me toward my goals. Frugality means using the digital coupon or using that nicer detergent well without wasting it, but it doesn’t just mean, buy the cheapest thing each time.

Am I going to face this purchase again quickly?

The shoe example is a great place to go with this one: I’d always wanted a $20 pair of shoes, regardless of how long they last. When I started really noticing how often my shoes were getting beat-up quickly (as opposed to when they became totally non-functional), I realized I wasn’t getting a good deal on my cheap shoes: the nice-looking new product lasted me less than 8 weeks, even if I soldiered on wearing those shoes for many more months.

Having to buy things again is exhausting and wasteful, and while it’s worth it to me to give a cheap brand a shot here and there, to see if it really is the same quality as the nicer item but for a lesser price, I want to be pretty clear-eyed with how long things last.

There’s definitely an extreme you can take this to, buying the nicest quality, beautiful items for extraordinary prices. These products can wear out too, and the cost-per-use may still be astronomical, even if they last a little longer than a medium-priced item. So this question is not just about maximizing time between shopping trips, but really figuring out how to get the best value per use.

Do I complain and feel deprived by this choice?

I feel bad for people whose childhoods were full of luxury goods and services — I imagine that if they strike out on their own and try to live off entry-level wages somewhere, they have to feel deprived for a while.

I’m sure it builds some kind of character, but a big part of how I stay frugal rather than cheap is by trying to change my attitudes around inexpensive items.

If having to have less or a worse option is making me unhappy, I try to be proactive about changing either the circumstance or the purchase. A good example is where I currently live: we’re in a low cost of living area, and all our family live in a higher cost of living place that we’d much prefer to live. I can get a little grumpy and resentful about it.

But we’ve also put in place a savings plan and a strategy for getting to move there eventually, hopefully within a couple of years. Rather than saying, “I’m going to live here because it’s cheap and I’m letting myself stay stuck,” I said, “the next step for me, even though I appreciate living for less, is investing in the life I want in a more expensive place.”

We’re not going to do it till the budget makes sense, of course, but I think being cheap can often be about just buying low-cost things and letting yourself think that you’re stuck feeling deprived. Full frugality, in my opinion, is about spending less but also figuring out where to strategically spend so that you’re not constantly resentful and deprived.

Can I genuinely say I love this low-expense life?

There are areas of my life where Mr. Blue Sky and I feel genuinely like we aren’t deprived even when we’re buying something that is truly the cheapest possible item.

An example is that, when he’s in the mood, Mr. Blue Sky will eat raw ramen noodles, like those in the picture above, as a crunchy snack, not because there’s no other food in the house. It’s just something he actually likes.

Same with me and going to free concerts rather than seeing my favorite bands in concert. Are the paid concerts better in some ways? Absolutely. But I have so much fun at a free concert, and I don’t dwell on the sound quality or the genre of the music much, so the free one is perfect for me.

That’s our trade-off when we’re effectively frugal: yes, we’re cutting back in any area where it doesn’t make us frustrated, but we’re willing to spend in areas where the extra dollars really boost our love of our lives.

I still struggle with a tendency to feel like I’m doing the right thing by mindlessly grabbing the cheapest alternative. But when I take the time to think it through, I may save myself money by picking something else, either because I’ve thought through the consequences of that choice or because I will be a happier person as a result of that choice. It’s a daily practice that I have to keep getting better at over time, but I’m glad to pursue it.