Frugal Adversity
This is a guest post from JvW at The Good Life on a Budget, a blog about her journey maintaining her quality of life while meeting her financial goals including eliminating debt. If you enjoy the post, consider subscribing to their RSS feed!
I am unabashedly frugal. I do a lot of things that other people scoff at, including, but not limited to: packing my lunch daily, having only basic cable, and keeping my thermostat at 62 degrees (in the winter). I’m sure most people reading this have similar practices. However, my peers and coworkers have different states of mind.
Sometimes this leads to conflict, or an offhand remark. I do talk more than the average person about saving money, frugality, and paying off debt. But for some reason, I get teased about the ways I go about it. For example, last week our whole office was sitting in a meeting. I pulled an English muffin, out of my baggie to eat for breakfast. I then put the baggie back on the table, intending to use it for the next day’s muffin. Coworker J asked if he could put his apple core in the baggie to throw away (it was an eaaaaarly meeting, everyone had breakfast). I replied, no, sorry, I’m keeping the baggie. Everybody at the table was shocked. Coworker M even offered to buy me a box of baggies, as it was apparent that I couldn’t afford to throw one away.
In the real world, I feel like people just don’t understand my frame of mind. Of course I can afford to buy another baggie. That wasn’t my last baggie, with no future baggies to come. Just like I can afford to get cable TV and I can afford to turn the heat up a little. I choose not to spend my money that way. I don’t know why, but that makes people uncomfortable. Maybe they think that they spend too much money, and it’s easier to believe I can’t afford their lifestyle than to think that they might not be able to afford it, either. Maybe they think I am a penny pincher and, in social situations, won’t chip in my fair share. I don’t know. All I can do is keep on trucking and offering my opinion when we talk about personal finance.
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October 17th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I think it’s great that you reuse the plastic baggies. You’re saving resources…
October 17th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I think it’s great that you reuse baggies too. I even use cloth napkins. I get teased about that and about bringing my lunch every day. In addition I’m very focused on living a healthy life style. Co-workers don’t understand that I would rather not pay for pizza and fast food for lunch. I would rather save the money and the calories for other things.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I think people react the way they do because, as you said, perhaps it makes them feel uncomfortable because they really can’t afford to live the way they do and don’t want to be reminded of it. And most people don’t like other people to be different from them. But stick to your guns!
October 17th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
It is the mindset of the world we live in. We are a throw away society - that phrase is thrown around a lot but it is very true. Most people just don’t give a second thought to our resouces unless it directly impacts their finances. They may have been shocked, but if they see those examples enough times it will slowly start to enlighten their thoughts and it won’t be so foreign a concept. Good job with your example.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
I think they just feel stupid when they think about how much they waste with throwing away a perfectly reusable item like a plastic bag.
October 17th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
We also wash many of our ziploc bags and reuse them. Not every single one but ones that are easy to clean that have had maybe a rice cake or some uncooked beans or something in them.
I think when people comment or critique others’ personal habits that don’t affect them in any real way it is due to their own issues and isn’t really about you at all.
There are all sorts of reasons why they may react that way and I won’t claim to know why people do what they do. What I do know is that in the end it doesn’t really matter what others think of your habits and choices. What matters is that you feel good about them and it sounds like you do. And it also sounds like those comments don’t have an effect on how you feel about your choices.
I generally find it rude when people question or criticize (unsolicited) other people’s pesonal choices, but I wonder if it’s better to just let it go, or if those people actually want to learn more about your choices deep down inside.
Like, for ex., if you told them what you said here (you can obv. afford the baggies but are choosing to not be wasteful and are choosing to not throw away something that still can be used, etc. etc. etc.) if that might actually perhaps help them or lead them to make some changes in their lives. I guess what I’m saying is I wonder if people bring it up because it is so different from what they know and they are responsive to learning about it, or if it just a way to confirm to themselves that the way they do things is better and that they don’t want see why your method might be worthwhile.
I’m sort of just thinking aloud here (b/c I’ve dealt with this issue and wondered about it previously as well) but I wonder if asking if they’d like to know more about why you’ve made the choices you’ve made might actually lead some people to consider adopting the very habit they seem to astounded by initially.
For example when we lived in a studio apt. we got comments about how we could live in such a small space. I wonder if really giving a genuine explanation and had a discussion about it, if it might have led our friends to think more about the issue of space and to see how a studio apt. could be a comfortable choice for if not themselves at least for other couples. Or would they have just felt that their choices were normal while ours were strange despite our efforts to explain our choices?
I guess what I’m thinking for myself is that maybe it won’t hurt in the future to ask if the other person really wants me to explain my choices and learn about them. Rather than get annoyed, which is how I’ve felt before since I don’t see why people need to question other people’s choices that have nohting to do with them in the first place, I m ight end up being able to share info. that has a chance of possibly being informative or useful for somebody else.
(sorry so long!)
October 18th, 2007 at 6:41 am
My coworker reuses his paper bag. He’s been known to use the same one for at least a month. Everyone laughs at him, but he’s rich. He and I are good friends and I like him because I can talk about money and finances. He’s 62, I’m 33, and he doesn’t have a lot of friends. Now only if I could get him to put me as a benficiary on his will.
Sticks and stones, babe. Let them laugh, while you laugh all the way to the bank.
October 19th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Thanks for the great responses! I mentioned today to coworker M that I was also trying not to be wasteful by reusing the baggies and he said “Don’t tell me you’re going all green now.” Ah, I like him anyway.
m - thanks for your thoughtful comment. You’re right, all that matters is that I am happy in what I choose to do, and naysayers be danged. I also like the idea of trying to get others to see the reasoning behind my behaviors in hopes that they might be inspired to change their behavior. Alas, I know coworker M very well and I think he’s a lost cause.
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Thanks JvW for the guest post!! It seems there are a lot of baggie reuser supporters here