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Question of the Day – Frugal vs. Cheap
By JLP | April 9, 2007
I ask this because “Him” left the following comment on my post about how I thought Garage Sale Shoppers Were Rude Cheapskates:
“But JLP, they’re being FRUGAL.
Who knows THEY’RE PROBABLY ALL MILLIONAIRES. Especially if they live NEXT DOOR.”
Is there a difference? What do you think?
Topics: Question of the Day | 26 Comments »
April 9th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I think if you’re “frugal,” you still appreciate the value of something and buy accordingly. Whereas, if you are “cheep,” you are value-blind and see only the price. Just my subjective opinion.
April 9th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I think there’s a huge difference. I wrote about this before in my post, Cheap vs. frugal.
April 9th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Wife and I were just discussing this topic last night as it relates to some of our friends and relatives. Yes, I think there is a difference. I think a certain measure of frugality is just plain ole common sense. It’s frugality until it starts to really affect your relationships and how you interact with people.
We have had friends (notice the past tense) who are so cheap it has been offensive at times – for example when it comes to splitting the dinner tab and the cheapo friend consistently slaps down (with an air of finality) $20 bucks to cover their $30 tab. Anyone can miscalculate from time to time, but some people do this with enough frequency that it’s obvious what’s going on – they’re trying to stiff you and take some pleasure in doing so.
The people I know who I would consider cheap are essentially people who take frugality to the level of obsessive/compulsive behavior. These people lose friends and run into relationship problems over it – in one case it contributed to a divorce and in another the couple is in therapy.
Ultimately, people who are obsessively cheap don’t tend to make good long-term friends – they usually have personality issues that go well beyond the obsessive cheapness.
April 9th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
To db:
You said “Your math fails to consider non-quantifiable, non-tangible factors – layoffs, unexpected illness, a desire to simply shift gears among them.” speaking on JLP’s math.
If you don’t give up your money to the bank, it will be available in case of “non-tangible factors.” By keeping the money on hand to pay off the mortgage over time you are in the safest position, ready for anything that might come up. Now, if you can’t keep your hands off your money then you probably are better off giving it back to the bank as quickly as you can.
Frugality is the respect of money and cheapness is the worship of it.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
“Cheap is making others behave like you, frugal is behaving in a manner that makes you happy” according to Liz Pullman Weston interviewed Mary Hunt in this article. http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/AreYouFrugalOrStingy.aspx
I firmly believe this. Frugal people use coupons to eat out but tip well, cheap people stint on the tip. I also like making guest tea from a used tea bag or offering half a popsicle when you give your own children a full one.
It’s when money rules your life. And that person who switched the 25 cent sticker with $1, that’s WRONG. Morally and ethically it’s stealing, not just cheap, it’s stealing period. I haven’t ever stolen in my life and that’s just stooping to a new level. That’s not frugality that’s over the line of wrong. That person probably sticks their hand in the penny jar and takes a penny every time, but never puts one in. I never take a penny cause it feels wrong, but I’ll put one in.
April 9th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Being frugal is being responsible – you use coupons, you save, you don’t overspend. Your are wise with your money.
Being cheap means cutting every last corner. You are Scrooge. A miser. You want every-last penny SQUEEZED for its worth.
And Livingalmostlarge is right – price swapping is beyond cheap. Being cheap is haggling something for a penny when it costs $25, being a thief is taking the item because it only costs a penny, so why bother paying for it?
April 9th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
I think being frugal is common sense. It means not waisting your money and being smart about what you do with it.
Cheap people are greedy. They keep everything they have for themselves and complain when they have to spend it.
I am frugal, but I am not cheap.
April 9th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Here’s a couple of experiences from our moving sale:
The sale started at 7 a.m. At 5:30 a.m., there were 25 cars parked in front of our house. The doorbell started ringing at 6:00 a.m., with people asking when the sale was going to start. As I began to take the tarps off the tables at 6:30, a man rushed up, grabbed a chair marked $15 and asked, in all seriousness, “Will you take a dollar for this?”
Two minutes after 7, a woman pushed through the crowd and said, “I’ll take this.” I looked at the item, which I had priced an hour before at $2. The woman had replaced that sticker with one that said $0.10. I looked at her and simply said, “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me, lady,” followed by, “Please hit the bricks.”
I will never have another garage sale or moving sale again. It shed a light on cheapness and uber-frugality that I thought was rather ugly, to tell you the truth. I don’t mind knocking off $0.50 or a buck, but fourteen dollars?
Sheesh.
April 10th, 2007 at 1:34 am
My wife is frugal, I’m just plain cheap
April 10th, 2007 at 6:16 am
Well, I’m sure you know which way I’m going to come down on this argument
To me there is a huge difference. As I say in my tagline: To me being frugal is not about being “cheap”. It is about not spending any more than you have to on things that really aren’t important to you, so that you DO have money for the things you really want.
I consider myself very frugal-I cook almost entirely from scratch, buy the bulk of the family’s (name brand) wardrobe from thrift stores, etc etc etc. I take great pride in the fact that I only spent $62 on my 6yr old’s birthday party and yet overheard 2 of her little friends tell her “this was the best birthday party ever”.
On the other hand for the last 2 1/2 years I’ve been able to stay at home with the kiddos while we’ve lived on DH’s state employee income, we own our house outright, have fully funded IRA’s, investments etc, and own 3 motorcycles (2 of which are Harley’s), an RV, 5 cars (2 of which are antiques) a 3 wheeler, a golf cart, a hottub (bought used) –we did sell the boat a few years back. . . .well you get the point.
We aren’t living a miserable unhappy existance. We act ethically and morally. We volunteer our time, money and resources in the community (which I find when I read many of the frugal living sites-many people who are self proclaimed frugalites seem to volunteer and/or use some of their saved money/resources to give back)
OK. I’m off my soapbox now.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:09 am
I’m with Amy — frugal is being responsible (good steward) while cheap is being selfish. I too am growing more frugal by the day.
With that said, I have also been led to bless others with our kids’ clothing as they grow out of them rather than sell them at a garage sale. There are many families in need who, as opposed to the greedy garage sale shoppers, will benefit more and I believe that I am doing the work of Jesus by doing so.
Like Jenn, we’ve learned to live without (stuff we really don’t need in the first place), and actually have been blessed — I’m finding it a fun challenge to figure out how to either make something myself, substitute for something we already are doing or to eliminate it, and it’s been incredibly rewarding!
April 10th, 2007 at 7:11 am
Jenn got it on the ball. This is something my friends can’t comprehend.
My buddies and I want to check out the amusement park in Cedar Point Ohio, but they all want to stay in a nice hotel. I told them it’s not important to me and I think we’d have more fun camping. They think I’m cheap, but I’d rather spend that $200 for two nights on something else!
Cheap is what I saw on “The Simple Dollar” …. he suggested bringing a calculator to the market so you can find out which toilet paper is the better buy …
April 10th, 2007 at 9:54 am
OK, for starters Jenn is my hero.
hmm…
Actually I think bringing your calculator to market to figure out the best relative cost of toilet paper is frugal, not cheap (CHEAP would be like the time I saw somebody on an Oprah-like talk show describing how he’d buy the least expensive two-ply toilet paper, then take it home, make the family go through an exercise of separating out the two plys and re-rolling the toilet paper and then having an upper limit of how many sheets were allowed per trip to the restroom. It was something like 10 squares of this separated out TP. GEEZ! get a life!)
And Bizzaro — well I’ve had some similar-type experiences at my yard sales. Though I’ve stopped pricing anything, I make people deal with me for the price of everything. By the end of the yard sale I’m exhausted and I can only bring myself to have one every few years (well I have no yard anymore either…)
DB
April 10th, 2007 at 10:00 am
The concepts are two sides of the same coin, both addressing the same idea but with different value judgments. Being “frugal” is being tight with money, but in a positive way, while being “cheap” is the same thing but in a negative way. Thus they can’t really be objectively defined. They depend on a subjective judgment of what is reasonable or positive and what is unreasonable or negative. One person’s “frugal” is almost always another person’s “cheap”.
April 10th, 2007 at 11:56 am
This is a very nice discussion developing here! To add to what’s been said already, here is one more point. A frugal person aims to be content with what he/she has or can afford, whereas a cheap person wants more and more stuff, but just doesnt want to pay for it. There is a huge difference in the two perspectives.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
I couldn’t resist chiming in on this one as my family can’t quite get that I’m frugal, not cheap. Here’s my definition:
Frugal is making a stuff sack for your backpacking stove out of an old tyvek envelope so that, when it gets sooty and torn, you can throw it away and make a new one at no cost.
Cheap is using someone else’s store bought stuff sack for your backpacking stove so that, when it gets sooty and torn, you can give it back to them so they can buy a new one.
Neither one costs you anything, but being frugal won’t cost you as many friends.
April 10th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I would second (or third) the ideas above that frugal is something that you do to your self, while cheap is something that you do to others. For example:
Frugal is saving the extra ketchup packets and napkins included in your sack of take-out food and using them later. Cheap is stuffing your pockets full of ketchup packets and napkins while in the restaurant, while telling people that “they are here for our use”. Obnoxious is taking a big wad of napkins and ketchup, using a couple, then throwing most of them in the trash.
April 10th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Reading the above comments helped better refine my thoughts on frugality vs. cheapness. The comments along the lines of “cheapness is something people do to others” is spot on. I guess that’s what I was getting at when I stated that “It’s frugality until it starts to really affect your relationships and how you interact with people.”
Cheapness is the compulsion to extract unreasonable monetary gains at the expense of others. It is the twin sibling of greed, which you could almost define in exactly the same way.
Give you an example. I was at a meeting recently where we had some excellent sandwiches catered for dinner. At the end of meeting, there was plenty of food leftover, and a couple of people at the meeting carried sandwiches home. Now, when I tell you that these people are worth more than you and me put together times 50, believe it.
Were they being cheap?
I think no – they were only being frugal. Good food, plenty left over, why not take some home to share. It has nothing to do with whether you could afford it or not.
Now if we add a hypothetical twist – What if one of them set the best sandwiches aside to keep for himself before anybody even got to eat? Now THAT would be CHEAP.
Why? Because he would have done it at the expense of the rest of us having fewer choices. He would have acted out of greed rather than practicality.
This is why I don’t wish to be friends with cheap people – ultimately, they can’t be trusted. Their greed will eventually get the better of them, probably at my expense. And who needs friends like that?
April 10th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I think frugal isn’t necessarily something you do that only impacts yourself (the implied connotation is in a negative sense). I think there is a certain goodwill aspect to frugality that is absent from cheapness.
To me frugality goes hand in hand with “walking softly on the earth”, and this implies a certain consideration of yourself and others, the greater community. I think you are frugal in part because you recognize that resources available to you have a limit — that they do have a certain cost — and out of self-care you seek to maximize your efficient use of those resources. Likewise, the act of living frugally can possibly allow others to have the benefit of having more resources available to them. It’s not so much a scarcity mentality as an honest evalution of how much is enough.
For example, if you choose to eat more frugally, one fringe benefit could be that another person has the opportunity to eat from the resources that you didn’t consume (or buy with the intent to consume but throw out as waste). So frugality really is about good stewardship of what you have, it’s a recognition and respect for the true cost of things to yourself (and perhaps others).
In contrast, I think (as others have alluded to) that being cheap is a different aspect of being greedy. You want MORE stuff for yourself, but you also want to avoid the burden of its true cost. Being cheap, being greedy and hording are all related and they all stem from a scarcity mentality.
My two cents,
DB
April 10th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
@DB – I really like your definition of frugality vs cheapness – it’s what I was driving towards but you stated it so much better than I could.
April 10th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
JLP, I’m almost back from the dead! Taking a little break from tax hell–6 days and counting ’til I have free time to read my fav blog–yours!
Anyway, ditto on the frugal vs. cheap comments. To me, frugality is a virtue, whereas cheapness is a vice.
Still looking for garage sales feedback? I’ve “endured” participating in one almost every year…as a child and now as an adult. Frankly, the less free time I have in my life, the more I’m starting to despise the time and effort it takes in preparing and executing the sale. However, I feel it’s a learning experience for my boys on a multitude of levels.
First, obviously there’s the lesson of interacting w/a variety of people, most of whom are wonderful. Of course, there are a handful that are annoying w/their attitudes…I chose whether to sell to them or not. I take pleasure in holding firm to my price when they’re jerks.
Second, the business aspects of setting the right price, making change, packaging the goods, etc. are important lessons.
Third, my boys have started selling coffee and hot dogs at our annual sale…again, a hands-on lesson.
But most importantly, I point out to them the WASTE that is evident from our tables overflowing w/almost-new toys, etc. (from over-generous family.) It’s the old need vs. want argument. Those tables paint a thousand words!
Anyway, I’ll continue to have them…even if it’s only a few tables w/the kids’ castoffs and their “food stands.” Whatever’s left gets donated to friends/family/charity. Clutter-free is my goal!
PS Miguel and Sam–I’ve missed you! You too, JLP
April 11th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Here’s a question for you all. If I order a plain cup of coffee at Starbucks and I don’t put change in the tip jar, am I being frugal or cheap?
Why should I tip for a such a simple service? Yet so many establishments put the tip jar right there on the counter and it creates a sense of obligation or guilt.
I could understand tipping the barrista for making that special cafe mocha latte extra thin blah blah, but coffee???
Please, tell me if I’m off base here.
April 11th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
anon,
Excellent question.
Personally, I generally don’t tip at Starbucks. Why? I never really thought about it, I guess. That and the fact that Starbucks charges enough for their coffee in the first place.
May 31st, 2007 at 8:50 am
These responses opened my eyes and I will re-think how I operate. Usually I’m frugal but at times I’ve been cheap and I think life is too short and long to feel like you’ve got to get all you can for a penny. Besides, I read a website by Janine Bolon with her 60/40 proposition. As soon as I have dispensed with huge credit card debt, I plan to adopt her principles. Giving 20% of your net income is a part of her plan and I like that. It is fun and when you do it with an open heart and expect nothing in return, it does come back.
May 31st, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Susan:
Thank you for reading my web site. I would encourage you to rethink waiting to implement the 60/40 principle until you are out of debt. This is how you work it. With every bit of cash that comes your way that is NOT your paycheck apply the 60/40 to it NOW. Don’t wait until you’ve paid off all your credit cards. You’ll have better luck and faster financial security if you act now. If you have additional questions for me, visit my blog or my web site and I’ll do my best to answer them. I want you debt free sooner rather than later that’s what 60/40 is all about. Have a great summer!
March 17th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Anon: No you’re not being cheap at Starbucks if you don’t leave a tip. Tipping is always discretionary (although it is more of an expectation at a service location such as a full service restaurant presuming the service was adequate). I have several friends who work at SB and say that tips are appreciated, but not expected, and usually they are so busy they don’t really know who tips and who doesn’t. In your case a cashier is filling a cup of coffee and handing it to you. No big deal..no tip required. If you were one of those customers that expects a “half caf, 180 degree soy latte with no foam and please add a splenda before you pour the milk” kind of customers…maybe a tip is in order as that’s not a standard drink and it’s going to take some effort by the staff to make you happy. Or if you’re a regular and they are astute enough to have your usual order ready for you when you get to the front of the line. They’re being personable to you, and saving you a bit of time.