
Being frugal is for the rich - devy
https://theoutline.com/post/3840/frugalwoods-frugality-millennials
======
michaelbuckbee
The word missing from this discussion is "structural" \- there are deep
structural changes to how the job market and economy now works that limit the
economic prospects of millennials (as a group) in ways that can't readily be
overcome with thriftiness and hard work.

Here's an excerpt of the article that really clarified this for me:

"Thirty years ago, she says, you could walk into any hotel in America and
everyone in the building, from the cleaners to the security guards to the
bartenders, was a direct hire, each worker on the same pay scale and enjoying
the same benefits as everyone else. Today, they’re almost all indirect hires,
employees of random, anonymous contracting companies: Laundry Inc., Rent-A-
Guard Inc., Watery Margarita Inc. In 2015, the Government Accountability
Office estimated that 40 percent of American workers were employed under some
sort of “contingent” arrangement like this—from barbers to midwives to nuclear
waste inspectors to symphony cellists. Since the downturn, the industry that
has added the most jobs is not tech or retail or nursing. It is “temporary
help services”—all the small, no-brand contractors who recruit workers and
rent them out to bigger companies."

from: [http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-
millenni...](http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/)

~~~
T2_t2
Except they also had less. This is the ... I'm not sure of the right word,
paradox? duality? ... anyway, the problem/benefit of globalisation, that it
leads to cheaper stuff. We all have more today, even on less money. Thought
experiment: ask yourself when it was better to be poor: 1950, or 2018. In 1950
you could... go to the library? In 2018, even the very poor likely have a
mobile phone, the internet, a games console, and an near endless world of
entertainment.

The problem is not with income as much as costs. The NIMBYism of a lot of
places inflates the cost of the main expenses like rent - where most people's
money goes - and the cost of getting around, as people are forced to live
further away from jobs. That was the big finding from the minimum wage hike in
Seattle, that poor people where forced to travel further for work, and it cost
them more. Ironically, I think that is pretty much how all cities work since
crime went away. The days of the poor occupying prime real estate near a city
is pretty much over.

Even sans better employment opportunities, fixing the zoning laws in most
cities would lead to better lives for many people. Sadly, this NIMBYism is
really hard to fight against, and often the people it hurts fight hardest for
it.

~~~
KingMob
The plummeting costs of technology over time make it a poor barometer for
measuring wealth.

Instead of mobile phones and TVs, look at bigger items like health care,
housing, and education, all of which have gotten more expensive (in the case
of education, astoundingly so) even as inflation-adjusted wages have
decreased.

~~~
Consultant32452
There's a simpler test here. If you weren't sure what color your skin would
be, what income bracket you'd be born into, what level of health you'd have at
birth, or even what country you'd be born in, would you rather be born in 2018
or 1950?

~~~
candiodari
I don't think it's that simple. When I was 15 without a doubt I would have
said today.

And now at 30 I'm pretty convinced that I would have liked 1950 better. Why ?
Because the space and that I know that for 30+ years my life would
consistently improve, maybe even 50+ or 60+, including an actual pension etc,
even if I was born black. The basic standard would be different, but the
constant improvement wouldn't. I mean I'd miss my PS4 and iPad, except of
course I wouldn't, not really.

Maybe I'll change my mind again.

~~~
Consultant32452
71% of the world's population lives on less than $10/day. You won't be getting
a pension if you happen to be born black in South Africa in 1950. The world is
still experiencing constant improvement. Every day across the world some 130k
people achieve basic food security for the first time in their lives. The UN
estimates extreme poverty will be gone across the globe by 2030. Not to
mention improvements in healthcare, human rights, etc.

------
aschearer
The title here seems very inflammatory. The article questions whether some
actions (e.g. painting your own home instead of hiring someone to do it) are
truly frugal. It goes on to say that the philosophy of frugality is a
handmaiden for wealthy.

Maybe so, but why would we discourage good spending habits? For example,
choosing to eat one or more meals out each day versus bulk cooking is an
option available to most people. Likewise, choosing to spend $800 on rent with
roommates versus $1,600 for a studio or one bedroom apartment.

I'm not seeing how millenials or members of the middle class benefit by
uncritically opting for more expensive options. My read on frugal culture is
spend however much money you want on whatever you want, but do so eyes-wide-
open. Break free from all the advertising, inertia, and "keeping up with the
joneses".

Frankly I think if more people adopted this style of thinking it would have
serious ramifications for the rich and their businesses built on over
consumption and debt.

~~~
qntty
I guess this is the real motive behind the article:

 _But here’s the thing. Regardless of intent, these Millennials are telling an
older generation of elite Americans — the very people whose policies and
financial decisions kneecapped the economy — what they want to hear: that
everything is more or less okay, and young people just need to be more
thoughtful about their money. And that’s a shitty idea to perpetuate. Because
whatever happens in the years ahead, penny-pinching will likely remain a
lifestyle enhancement for bourgeois Millennials who possess enough money to
enjoy the dividends of being thrifty. For most of us, there are no dividends:
just thrift._

It's not about the advice itself -- the advice all seems pretty reasonable --
it's about the place that advice has in the story we tell ourselves about
young people. I myself practice many of these thrifty tips, but I cringe to
think that the blog posts that people write about them will be used to justify
continuing to build a world where they are more and more necessary.

~~~
vorpalhex
> continuing to build a world where they are more and more necessary

My grandmother can still, to this day, recount living in an apartment with no
furniture except a mattress, with my grandfather who was employed as an
engineer in New York. It took, by her estimate, about two years to have enough
furniture before she was willing to invite over any sorts of company.

Today you can furnish an apartment reasonably with about a months worth of
wages. I know this because I helped take a friend who makes a bit over minimum
wage to IKEA to get all their furniture for an apartment they moved into.

The myth of decline is that - a myth. The economy is better then it has been
in decades, violence is at an all time low, and jobs are widely available in
many areas of the country.

I have friends who complain about the economy "being destroyed", who max out
credit cards to buy brand new cars and buy expensive home theaters. I have one
friend who despite making six figures a year, took a predatory payday loan
because she had spent her wages on expensive unused tools.

That's not to blame "millennials" anymore than to blame any other generation.
Bad financial choices have existed since the dawn of human history, but in
many cases today they are choices, not pre-supposed economic outcomes. We can
help correct that by teaching good finance skills (budgeting, doing things
yourself instead of hiring people, focusing on cheaper hobbies, etc).

~~~
legulere
Mass produced goods including furniture is cheaper nowadays but everything
else is more expensive. This includes essential things like housing and
healthcare.

Further the needs have also grown: without a car it’s impossible for most
people to have a job

~~~
vorpalhex
> but everything else is more expensive

Yes and no. One thing to keep in mind is inflation, so we always need to
compare prices to average incomes. A house is listed as being <10k in 1940,
but the average yearly salary was also <2k, and the minimum wage was $0.30 per
hour.

However, things have genuinely gotten more expensive in some cases usually due
not to the economy, but due to safety. That's a good thing - we no longer have
asbestos and lead paint, cars are safer, and working fire alarms are a thing.
However, those things do cost money. You can no longer buy an all metal box
that goes 80mph without seatbelts or airbags.

I find the car claim to be somewhat of a red herring. Yes, you need a car now
whereas before a bicycle might of sufficed. However, a decent car can be had
for two thousand dollars - not a pretty one, but a functional one. You might
be able to go cheaper if you have any mechanical ability, but we'll assume the
average person doesn't have that.

In addition now of course you need drivers insurance, and you probably need to
take a drivers ed course before getting your license. Those things do add
cost, but they also save lives.

~~~
mcguire
Yes and no.

The median home value in 1940, adjusted for inflation to 2000, was $30,600
($2,938 pre-adjustment).[1] The median income for a man was $9,948, using the
same inflation factor of 10.406639 ($956, unadjusted).[2]

The median home sales price in 2015 was about $300,000[3] while median
household income was $54,000.[4]

[1]
[https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/valu...](https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/values.html)

[2]
[https://www.npr.org/2012/04/02/149575704/the-1940-census-72-...](https://www.npr.org/2012/04/02/149575704/the-1940-census-72-year-
old-secrets-revealed)

[3]
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS)

[4]
[https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-25...](https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-256.html)

~~~
refurb
You're ignoring that the percentage of people living in cities has gone up by
50% (56% -> 75%) from 1940 to 1990 (couldn't find later data).

The size of homes has also gotten much bigger.

So the $30,000 home in 1940 (in today's dollar) wouldn't look anything like a
$300,000 home today.

I'd be more interested to learn what a townhouse in Manhattan cost in 1940 and
2010.

~~~
jaclaz
And you need to count in something else, the actual changes in living
standards.

Nowadays the cost (for a new house) for "utilities" (water, electricity,
heating, A/C, etc.) plants/hardware is a considerable factor, as a rough
estimate 20-30% of the construction costs, and a large house in the 40's would
probably have had one single bathroom/WC (if any[1]) for a 3 bedrooms home.

jaclaz

[1] In rural parts it was not so unusual to have an external loo

------
peacetreefrog
Here's the takeaway: the frugals/similar bloggers are bad because they, "are
telling an older generation of elite Americans — the very people whose
policies and financial decisions kneecapped the economy — what they want to
hear: that everything is more or less okay, and young people just need to be
more thoughtful about their money."

While it's debatable whether everything is "more or less okay", and -- to some
degree -- there are definite systemic issues preventing people from being
where they want to be financially, I guarantee you that adopting this attitude
("it's not my fault I can't get ahead, the system is messed up") is going to
make you worse off financially vs believing/focusing on what you can control
and your own agency.

For example, I do think there are some current millennials who sort of got
unlucky with the student loan/college bubble and "were told" (or believed)
that they could just borrow whatever they wanted to study whatever they
wanted, and it'd all turn out OK. But I'm not sure people graduating high
school now nec have that excuse. And if you are graduating high school and
reading this, for gods sake, please take it upon yourself to think a bit about
what you might like to do and take a long, hard look at what exactly borrowing
the median 10's of k's of debt might get you before you do it.

~~~
jogjayr
What I missed was the part where their blog says "Millennials only! Everyone
else is absolved of blame!".

To hear people tell it, large swaths of the American population has a
retirement savings crisis, not just Millennials (who actually have time on
their side to build wealth). Their advice is universally applicable,
regardless of age or income.

------
joefourier
American salaries are difficult to make sense of from a European perspective.
The referenced average salary of $36,000/year for millennials with only a
high-school diploma would be a normal entry-level salary for a software
engineer in most of Western Europe, and a very good salary for experienced
engineers in Eastern Europe.

Tax burden is higher here as well, and while the cost of housing is exorbitant
many parts of the US, so it is in cities like Dublin, London and Paris, but
without the salary adjustments you see in San Francisco, New York, etc.

This makes it difficult to understand why frugality is impossible for an
American making triple the average salary of an average Czech or Croatian.

~~~
SolarNet
We don't have adequate public transportation (so car + car insurance + car
maintenance). And our cities were never really designed to be walk-able or
bike-able.

While we have compulsory health insurance not dissimilar to the German system,
most areas only have one or two providers (vs. 130 of Germany) whose prices
have been going up like 30% every year. We still pay out of pocket for most
medicine, dentistry, emergency (like ambulances), and psychological services.

Some utilities are ridiculously expensive. Like internet can be 80$ a month
for basic 2 mbps.

A large number of people are employed as contractors these days (the gig
economy), which adds a 15% tax (that the employer would pay for employees) for
a social security service we will likely never see, so I'm not sure the tax
burden is higher. Contractors also have to pay for _all_ their own health
insurance (and our cutoff for public assistance for health insurance is like
12k, not the 50k Euro like in Germany)

Which brings me to: we have to pay for our own retirement, even if not
contractors most companies don't assist with that anymore, especially for
entry level jobs.

~~~
trebor
You forgot the housing/rental situation too. In my area, renting is 33% - 50%
of _take home pay_ (after withholding taxes), without utilities or property
tax.

~~~
T2_t2
That is the same everywhere - worse in places like London.

------
FussyZeus
I get so tired of these narratives that paint anyone who isn't wealthy as just
lazy, and I especially get tired of millennials like myself being derided as
just not willing to give up enough in order to succeed.

You know what, it's true. If you took a robot and gave it a ground floor job,
that robot could work that job 7 days a week, 9 hour shifts, without missing a
beat. It would never get sick, it would never need time off, it would just
keep working. And it could eat really cheaply, just electricity really, but
even if it needed food it could make and eat it's own meals, cutting spending
down to pennies per. And it could do this for YEARS and have no problem at all
doing so, and buy a million dollar house after doing it for a few decades.

BUT, and say it with me: PEOPLE. AREN'T. ROBOTS. No people are, regardless of
which generation they're from. We get sick. We get diseases. We have car
accidents. We date. We sometimes have children unexpectedly. We occasionally
even, yes, get drunk. We want to go out and party, because you know, we're
social animals, and doing nothing but going to work, coming home, and cooking
and eating alone is fucking SOUL CRUSHING, and was never ever expected from
any other generation to not be.

We're messy, emotional, unstable little things. We make bad decisions. We'll
stress about our bills and then go do drugs with friends because it's the only
way we can scrape ourselves together _to go do it for another day._

The fact that so many politicians and so many pundits just "don't want to
deal" with the messy emotional side of being a working student, or just a low-
achiever, DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE MESSY EMOTIONAL SIDE IS NOT RELEVANT. To deny
any of these things, to deny they exist, to deny they are absolutely
warranted, and to deny that they should be allowed because again we are all
people, messy little people, is to deny what makes us human, and therefore is
to de-humanize the working poor.

~~~
peacetreefrog
The thing is, most humans are not doing those types of jobs for YEARS like
robots. Humans can learn on the job and acquire skills and impress their boss
and get raises and maybe become the boss and apply to other jobs or find
something like better. That's why it's called "ground floor", because you can
move up, and most people eventually do.

The % of people making minimum wage at any given time is a snapshot, and it
covers people at all stages of their lives. Are there some people working
their ass off and not making it a la an Upton Sinclaire book? Sure. But that's
not most people. In fact, most people (1) making minimum wage are between the
ages of 16-24 and aren't going to be making that forever. And even among those
who aren't, most are well above the poverty line.

[1] [https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/who-earns-
the...](https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/who-earns-the-minimum-
wage-suburban-teenagers-not-single-parents)

~~~
FussyZeus
If an employer expects you to be available at any time for any shift,
regardless of the job, then you should be paid enough to live off of that
paycheck. Full stop. Whether you’re feeding cats, flipping burgers, tending
wounds, or just answering a phone, we have entire lines of work now where
despite the fact that you’re expected to always be available and never turn
down a shift, you get paid bare minimum wage, and never get enough hours for
benefits. It’s disgusting and immoral.

------
mcguire
While it's kind of unrelated to the overall point of the article, it includes
the statement, " _According to the Federal Reserve, Millennials in their
twenties carried an average debt of $22,135 last summer._ "

The linked Federal Reserve article[1] doesn't seem to directly support that
statement, but does say that ~55-60% of 18-29-year-old's used or are using
loans to finance their own education, but that, " _Among respondents who
report that they currently owe student loan debt for their own education, the
mean level of this debt is $30,156 and the median is $12,000._ " (Note: that
doesn't include those who have already paid off their debt.)

------
DoreenMichele
There have long been sort of similar advice gurus in this space. "How to
survive without a salary" and "The Tightwad Gazette" come to mind.

Some things they seem to have in common:

1\. A married couple on the same page financially.

2\. Both worked and saved before having kids.

3\. Decided to move to the country to live more cheaply.

4\. Developed a source of income that was portable such that moving to the
country didn't leave them stuck with some underpaid local job.

If you study history, part of the secret to the success of the parents of the
Boomers is they were two income families during WW2 because of the men being
off at war and the women taking factory jobs. Savings rates were as high as 50
percent due to basically war time rationing. So there wasn't anything to spend
it on. With the guys off at war, babies were mostly not being conceived.

So, if you can marry the right person, get on the same page financially, both
work full time at something better than slave wages while not yet having any
children and socking away the dough, you, too, can have this American dream.
The reality is very few people can check all those boxes and if anything goes
wrong at any point, the entire thing can be derailed.

Please note, this sort of assumes that neither partner has serious health
problems or any addictions or needs tons of therapy for some reason. It
assumes nothing goes drastically wrong while you merrily work towards your
dream, such as an unexpected pregnancy that could derail your plans even if
you get an abortion.

No matter how bad your situation, there are a few takeaways worth noting.
Celibacy, paying down debt and making sure you jibe well with anyone close to
you are all excellent choices that tend to benefit the bottom line.

But, you know, much easier said than done.

------
neogodless
Over the past few weeks, a long-running thread has been building on the Mr.
Money Mustache forums at [https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-
forum/what'...](https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-
forum/what's-up-with-the-frugalwoods/)

(Mr. Money Mustache isn't too different from the FrugalWoods. They never made
quite so much money, but they did have good careers. Still, there's a similar
message to be heard.)

I get that the high income and extravagant Vermont estate are a turn off for
median-and-below earners, but that doesn't mean you have to have their income
to benefit from their frugality. After all, MMM and FW have the time to write
about frugality because of their financial independence. But they are able to
live _the lives they want_ due to the choices they made with their money.

It isn't hard to find counter-examples. How often do you hear of people that
make $300k/year, yet fail to accumulate wealth and achieve financial
independence? How often do they continue to be held to wage slavery to support
their chosen lifestyle?

Anyway, while you can't save money by not painting your kitchen, you can
improve upon your self-sufficiency, and you can certainly become more mindful
of your values and the choices you make with your money. It takes education
(self or otherwise), and financial bloggers can serve as source of education.
But you still have to learn how to filter and apply knowledge to your own
situation. You can't pluck fruit from an orchard in your 600 sq. ft.
apartment, but you can track your spending, and figure out where money is
being spent on things that don't line up with your values and long-term goals.

The important thing is to figure out what you _can_ do to improve your
situation. Complaining about people being more successful than you doesn't
improve your situation. (I do get that income inequality is a whole other
issue to address, but I think that muddies this specific message.)

Remember that you can probably find ways to be more frugal and mindful, and
know that doing so alone will not get you a 66-acre homestead at the age of
30, but it can improve your life and get you to your goals faster.

~~~
gowld
beware of "frugal / FIRE bloggers" because they make their money blogging, and
aren't financially independent (last time I checked, MMM was a working
carpenter/contractor, while claiming he's "retired" because he "enjoys his
work"), which is not an avenue open to their entire audience.

~~~
toasterlovin
He is a carpenter because he saved enough money as a software engineer to do
whatever the fuck he wanted and he wanted to build shit with his hands. Does
financial independence somehow only count if you opt sit on your ass all day?

~~~
gowld
Having a job you like isn't "financial independence", it's having a job you
like.

~~~
toasterlovin
Financial Independence = Living Expenses < Stream of Income From Assets You
Own

That's it.

What you choose to do with your time, whether that be work, or whatever, does
not enter into that equation. If you think MMM is lying about being
financially independent, then that's a different story. But that he chooses to
work has no bearing on his financial independence.

------
bluetomcat
Living in Eastern Europe, I was able to witness the streamlined shift to a
Western consumerist lifestyle in a mere 15 to 20 years. There was a saying in
communist Bulgaria, "having money doesn't mean that there is anything you can
spend it on". This encouraged people to save and have longer-term goals. Fast
forward to today, everyday spending opportunities are beyond every corner, and
people prove that they are successful in life with outward and vulgar
consumerism which was probably a 70s thing in the West.

~~~
ericd
It's still very much a thing here. Curbing that habit is one of the things
these bloggers talk a lot about, since doing that helps you save much more.

------
thelibrarian
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they
managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus
allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an
affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then
leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those
were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so
thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the
feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could
afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry
in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would
have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have
wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

— Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

~~~
concrete-faucet
> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they
> managed to spend less money.

This really isn't as crazy as it may sound. When my spouse was working in
BigLaw, we rarely paid anything for weekends out. A typical case was a
"charity gala" at a downtown hotel. A law firm partners would buy the tickets
for an entire table but would inevitably be working and couldn't go. Even if
he could, he still needed 6 or 8 other people so his table didn't have empty
seats, which would be very embarrassing. So the call would go around - who has
time to attend a free party? Me, that's who. The bar would be stocked with
top-shelf liquor only, food was provided and excellent. The catch? You have to
know people to get invited. And you have to be able to show up in a perfectly-
fitting tuxedo with only a few hours notice. So you buy one, and it needs to
be pretty good because you're going to wear it 20-30 times a year. Amortized
out, an Armani costs a fraction of a rental.

------
nunez
I was expecting the article to say how they've inherited a massive amount of
money or how their parents paid for their education/first home/etc., which
made them deciding to go frugal by achieving financial independence a hell of
a lot easier. I didn't see any of that.

Furthermore, the author doesn't fully explain how these two were "rich" before
pursuing their journey to frugality aside from purchasing a home in Cambridge
(which was a smart decision and is definitely possible with a dual-income tech
salary in the area, assuming they didn't have debt to begin with).

There are definitely people that are able to live extremely frugally with
sizeable salaries and achieve large goals/financial independence in a
considerably short amount of time. However, like building a beach body, the
question is always "How much are you willing to sacrifice to get it?"

For many (myself included), the answer is "not enough."

~~~
mcguire
A dual-income tech salary may well qualify as rich. The median household
income in MA is about $75,000 (much higher than the national median). That's
also about what the median software developer is paid.
([https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/...](https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Developer/Salary/13e3c9be/Boston-
MA))

~~~
nunez
That's fair. I agree that a dual-tech-income is a lot of money compared to the
national average.

------
ars
This article keeps trying to make fun of the concept, claiming it's not real.

And yet, I know several people who have done exactly that (more quietly
obviously). And several who tried and failed.

The difference? It's debt.

If you can avoid debt completely this really does work, but it takes a LOT of
sacrifice on your part to get there.

It's basically a real life form of min-maxing in games. Minimize all pleasure
and ease at the start of life, and never get into debt.

Then once you are past that part suddenly it's all easier.

------
RickJWag
Count me in the 'skip the Starbucks and buy index funds' category.

Over time, it will make you much richer than you'd otherwise be. It really
works.

------
p3llin0r3
If you look up the dudes nonprofit income it's like 300k. These people are
either liars or incredibly nieve

------
tvanantwerp
So some people in a particular generational cohort write books and blogs about
their financial independence, but this is bad because it trivializes the
actual struggles of other people in their cohort who aren't financially
independent? Oh, the horrors!

~~~
notfromhere
they're usually bullshit because they fail to emphasize outside income and
support.

------
wemdyjreichert
I started saving at about 6. My dad did the numbers to show me how much I
could have by retirement. After inheriting a little from my grandparents and
saving that too, and after saving as much of my income as possible, it paid
off (literally).

~~~
Dowwie
You make it sound as if this were an entirely deliberate practice of self
control on your part. :) Were there safeguards that protected you from
yourself?

------
mnm1
Whoa, I just realized I've been retired for four years now! Words used to mean
something. If retired is a full time job and self employment, no one told me.
It's not bad but it's way overrated and certainly not happiness. My mom is
retired. She can literally do nothing all day every day. These people are not
retired, they're lying.

And referencing Warren Buffett's shit breakfast advise without considering the
money needed to budget for the inevitable health disaster of eating a sugary
breakfast at McDonald's every day is frankly ridiculous.

------
Double_a_92
Why can't I start scrolling on that website? I have to pull it with the
scrollbar past some initial barrier... WHY?

------
Dowwie
One's frugality is another's sustenance

------
jessaustin
I realize that TFA is a critique of these silly people, but somehow reading
the first two paragraphs seemed to be as much as I would ever need to know
about them.

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mr_spothawk
I'm glad the wouldn't let something as Patently Right Wing as "being thrifty"
to escape their journalistic gaze.

it's super important to make sure that no stone goes unturned in the constant
battle to find out who's keeping them down over there on "The Great Left".

/s

~~~
notfromhere
There's nothing wrong with being thifty, but there is a lot of wrong in using
"you're not thrifty" to explain systemic income inequality

~~~
mr_spothawk
if any portion of success can be explained by patterns of behavior, then
portions of "systemic" income inequality can as well.

I'm emphatically _NOT_ suggesting that poor people are only poor because they
don't understand how to balance a checkbook, avoid predatory loans, and how to
use the tax system to their advantage.

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logfromblammo
I would also make the economic argument that a rich person that is still
frugal is actively exacerbating income inequality.

If Warren Buffett is indeed still paying only $3 for breakfast every day,
that's giving a big middle finger to the economy. Money is half of the
circulatory system of the economy. When it pools too long in one spot, it
clots, and then a thrombosed clot can cause damage somewhere else.

He really needs to spend more on breakfast. As one of the richest individuals
on the planet, even if he just wants a sausage muffin, it should really be
made from only the highest quality agricultural goods, with a lot of personal
services added. If he can't manage to swallow that level of ostentation,
buying thousands more of the consumer-grade item than he could eat personally
would also work.

The only reason for poor people to permit rich people to continue existing is
that concentrations of wealth allow for the development of novel classes of
goods and services. There would be no luxury yachts if nobody could afford
more than a fishing reefer. There would be no Acura if nobody could afford
more than a Honda; no Lexus above Toyota; no Cadillac above GM. The luxury
goods and services are the early adopters. Without them, some technologies
would have died at inception, never to make it to consumer-grade products,
because they were too big and expensive.

Anyone can spend small. Everyone else needs the rich folk to spend big,
whenever they can. If you don't buy _the best_ , you are not doing your job as
a rich person. If you aren't spending on someone's wage, you aren't really
"creating jobs". If you can afford to have your cabinets painted instead of
doing it yourself, hire someone for that and get back to being the QC/beta-
tester for humanity's R&D. This crap where you "retire" and pretend to be
rustic and homey isn't helping anyone. If you want to live like a poor person,
that's easy; just get rid of all your money. Give it to someone more willing
to spend it.

Frugality stops once you can pay all your bills from your paycheck and still
have some left. After that, it's called stinginess or miserliness.

~~~
EnFinlay
I fundamentally and vehemently disagree with you.

~~~
lhnz
Why?

He is fundamentally correct. If you are rich and decide to stop hiring people
from your community to build extensions to your already large house, then the
money is just going to be pooling in your over-sized bank account: potentially
just being deployed by a bank to create profit for other rich people.

~~~
EnFinlay
Although you are correct that money I don't spend remains in my possession, I
disagree that there is any morale obligation to spend as much as possible.
Overconsumption is not a viable solution to many problems.

