Being Cheap Short Changes Only Your Soul
By: Brian Kean
Tags: People, Society, Perspective, Experience, Life Lessons

Being cheap, in my opinion, is an affliction. Regrettably obsessed with the most overt expression of control, government-backed money, the cheap person spends a life seeking freedom by accumulating ever more — or not parting with that what they have; only to find that the feeling of having enough never arrives — leaving them ever wanting.

Money cannot buy happiness. I savor these words like a slow-melting honey-flavored cough drop. Money can certainly facilitate a path but cannot create inner strength or balance.

I happen to be quite wealthy, however. My wealth cannot be measured in the traditional sense. The one, you know, where people refer to you as sir or simply as hey, you. Nor by the one where it’s the collection of numbers that determines our truest value in society, our place.

When you look wealthy, others tend to show you more respect than when dressed like a vagabond as my mother used to say. You look like that, people will treat you accordingly, she would threaten.

It would upset my mother when I’d call home from the army and tell her I had befriended homeless guys warming themselves near small beach fires in Monterey, California. You are going to catch something from them, she’d say. What could I possibly gain from those conversations? Mothers worry. They want their children to make only the right choices. The notion of befriending people with money was always more beneficial than building alliances with those who had none — this is how society works still today.

Studying Russian at the Defense Language Institute, and underage, a couple of us would wonder down to the beach with our illegally purchased beer. Fully aware of the particularly cool realness of the white noise, crashing waves and barking sea lions, the beers would be shared with those travelers.

If there was ever a moment when stories were being regaled, it was indeed with these homeless gentlemen. The more intricately-crafted details did take some suspending of reality, but as the stories were steadily let out like fishing line, the tug of wanting to learn more kept you listening. I mean, when yo think about it, does the fish really believe that the snazzy lure slowly seducing it to the surface is the love its life? Surely, not. We were engrossed and fully so.

These interactions were priceless because those men had a rare inner-wealth that enabled them to envision the epic stories that so raptured me. Tales of childhood here, lost love there and then youth abandoned in the jungles of Vietnam had created the perfect-storm of circumstances. Life on the road, on a beach, wisely advising how to avoid tragic missteps, had become a resource money could — and most likely would — never buy. Untethered from the material wants and needs, the only way they could determine by value was by what I had inside.

Sitting at the fire, I could feel the need to be the best version of me for them — it was an exchanging of youthful energy for wisdom. The “hobos,” as they were called in the local, and very wealthy community, became for me like trillionaires. Samplings of humans on the cusp of society, years later I would use their experiences like a template to assess a person’s inner, more significant value. Fancy clothes, cars and lots of stocks, does not make someone necessarily good or valuable. This is something the cheap person simply cannot grasp.

Going forward, I made it a point to seek out the hobos in life; to always keep them within arm’s reach. I rely on these men, and a few women, to keep me honest to a better me. For example, standing near the fountain in the Munich’s Central Market, sipping on beers cooled in the water and eating radishes purchased at the nearby stalls, is so much more real than the fancy hotels just a few hundred meters away with lobbies filled with the so-called “privileged.”

Holding court at this famous watering-hole/fountain, Michael, a man around sixty, tells tales, makes selfies with anyone and seems to remember everyone he has ever shared a beer with. If you tell Michael you own a Ferrari, he will be unimpressed. But if you tell him you want a beer for one euro and then stand there with him and chat for a while, he will smile widely and you will remember him forever — and all the most minute detail around you: air temperature, dew point, how the sun had managed to penetrate the thick canopy created by chestnut trees; dropping in on some spots making people seem golden while others were set off into deep shadows, laughing, drinking, singing.

Cheap People

Can you believe, I have had ten beers today, ate lunch and dinner and haven’t spent a penny on any of it. Others keep picking up the bill. A friend, who is quite well-off, shared this odd little accomplishment with me one evening at a bar.

You know cheap people. You know, the guy who says, oh, man, I would love to treat you but I have no cash and the ATM charges a huge fee. Then they explain, if I use my credit card, a fee will be tacked on and the drinks will be like 3.8% more expensive — they have actually spent energy on working this amount out. You get me this time and I will def get you the next time. That next time seldom comes.

Cheap people have a whole script ready for any occasion to justify why they can’t or won’t pay.

Yes, we all have our stories about these uncomfortable moments. The oddest thing is that a cheap person always thinks they are getting one over on us; that their rationalization for being, let’s say, frugal at that moment is actually believable. If the person is someone you care about, it just becomes an eccentricity that you accept. Other times, though, the feelings range from embarrassment for them to even sometimes anger.

I travel a lot. An interesting observation was made years ago. Having spent a lot much time in foreign cultures, many with their own currencies and value systems, the role of money for me has been skewed in my life. It became more like a sideshow to the circus of life. Where $1 may buy a certain good at home, in the foreign culture where I next happen to find myself, that same, say, hunk of cheese, costs 10,000 in the local currency.

Grasping these valuations, even for the most seasoned traveler, does present some misunderstandings. As a result, you end up focusing less on the numbers and more on the added-value of the item in your life. You become more enjoyment-centric instead of money-centric. This is a feeling the cheap person, sadly, can never feel.

Without further ado, here are the three things (reasons) why I believe cheap people live less happy, and less fulfilled lives.

Spending money creates panic. What makes cheap people the most anxious is the idea of parting with their precious numbers— money. The accumulation of money, much of which comes about thanks to their obsessive frugality, becomes the end — money saved, goal accomplished.

Spending, in some odd way, weakens them. Any spending undertaken that does not directly impact their well-being, or deemed not an absolute necessity, frazzles nerves resulting in panic — like once that faucet is opened, the saved money will just race out of it. It gets so bad that eventually some will buy bad quality foods, second-hand clothing and even fly planes with low safety records because the tickets are cheap — quality and safety of life suffer in the quest to horde the numbers.

You can never have enough. No matter what you do, how hard you save, how much you work, how many lotteries you win, someone will always have more money than you. If you have ever met a billionaire, they try to act really calm and happy. An air is exuded that suggests I am free from the race for money because I have so much. But really, they are frightened, obsessed and many don’t sleep well — I know five. If you are on the list of top wealthiest 500, you want to be in the top 400, then 300 and so on.

Cheap people are constantly assessing what others have and upon realizing that someone has more, they either convey on them an obsequious respect thinking him temporarily better; or, they will bad-mouth the person without even knowing her. Ever stressed over the battle to guard your wealth so as not to lose the unseen ranking — in a family, among friends, in a community, etc. — many of the cheap sooner or later become nasty and bitter.

It’s all about status. I would never be caught dead wearing something from that company. Is that an off-the-rack suit? I hope this meat of at least off the bone. Oh my God, look at how small their house is. We have all heard these nasty statements.

We know these people. Status-focused cheap people are actually willing to spend a lot of money on crazy things sometimes, making them in that instance not cheap; but this item they are willing to splurge on benefits really only them.

Loyal only to self and brand, in as long as it takes for them to glance at someone, the cruel assessment won’t at all make any considerations for an inner wealth. Actually, if it cannot be purchased or sold, the inner-wealth is irrelevant. With that knowledge, and one dollar, you can buy a coke — meaning even without that attained knowledge, you can still buy a coke making the knowledge, in their view, useless.

If you live a life only caring about the value of the material goods around you, and spend your life trying to acquire the best of them for your sole enlightenment, you eventually become hardened to the beauty, and need, in humans. It’s not my fault they are in need. I take care of myself so let them worry about themselves.

Humans can only care so much in the course of a day, right? If we are obsessing over cars, fancy shoes, top of the line mobile phones, then not much is left to care about humans; to engage the life we have.

If you are cheap, or any of this rang true for you, you have a chance to change. If you aren’t cheap, then live and love the life you can’t buy and rejoice in it.