Ridiculed for being cheap??

[freebird5825]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Thinking back, all my engineer friends were frugal, or at least appeared to be. True nerds/geeks do not care for status symbols. But they all complained the reason they couldn't join me in early retirement was their spendthrift wives.

baloney! salami! pepperoni! that one has whiskers!
just wave a new high capacity storage device or high end mathematical or image processing software package or digital camera or network router advertisement in front of them and the guys pulled out the ol' credit card faster than you could say Einstein. i'm an engineer myself, of the female persuasion. all i can say is...boyz and their toyz!

[NW-Bound]

Yeah, but those toys are cheap, compared to sport cars, boats, and planes.

Come on! I said they are frugal, not that they are ascetic!!

PS. I got 4 running computers here at home, just for myself. DW, DS, DD all have their own. So, 7 total. All dual-core CPUs. Not the latest, but no Pentium II here.

[calmloki]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ejman For years I drove my Chevy Sprint (Think Geo metro) ... I jogged because I had to "uncrimp and untangle" from the Chevy Sprint. I loved it! They are all still working....

Oh yeah - 3 cylinders, no waiting! Bought my old Sprint for $200, replaced the clutch, and drove it like a Spanish mule for 5-6 years. Sister got a great kick out of me driving up to her place of work one day and getting out while taking a call - my cell phone cost more than the car! Wrote off mileage for the rentals every year and every year the mileage paid for all costs and more than bought the car again. 50MPG in tune and 40MPG doing absolutely nothing to it as the last several years went.

Now we have old BMWs - plenty of bells and whistles, decent performance, plenty fun and cheap to buy.

[freebird5825]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Yeah, but those toys are cheap, compared to sport cars, boats, and planes. Come on! I said they are frugal, not that they are ascetic!! PS. I got 4 running computers here at home, just for myself. DW, DS, DD all have their own. So, 7 total. All dual-core CPUs. Not the latest, but no Pentium II here.

um...i have a sports car and a boat.
i'm afraid of heights, so that covers the plane thing.
i'm just bustin' 'em on ya.
dh2b is the techno-buyer here. i used to spec and order high end digital laboratory test equipment, so i lost my taste for that.
PS we have 2 laptops, 1 desktop for us 2, plus various used computers (3 in today's herd) that dh2b scavenges parts from. he will assemble a working computer system for folks we know whose broke and can't afford new ones right now. i think that is so cool.

[tmm99]

Thank you everyone for the posts/thoughts.

I can honestly say that I have no ill feelings toward this friend regarding the way she spends her money. It's her choice to do whatever she wants with her money as much as it's my choice to spend (or save) the money I earn. At the end of her life, I hope she is in a good place financially, and she may be if she plays the rest of her cards right. (She has rich parents and in-laws, plus she is not one of those crazy people who spends everything she makes or who are in CC debts. She just doesn't save as much as I do, but that is more the norm with my friends anyway, at least, compared to me.)

I hope to be in a semi-secure place in my later years and saving money now is my way of trying to achieve that. It does bother me that she makes those little irritating (irritating to me) comments to me though. And I really want to know why people pick on frugal people. It must be something about us that pushes their buttons!

One time, another friend of mine and I were talking and she was suggesting that I did this and that with my clothes (or my makeup? This happened years ago, so I cannot remember exactly, but I do remember that I was getting really irritated) and finally, I had to tell her that I didn't have the same passion she did to try to look good or try to impress people in general.

Is that it? Maybe that's the kind of stuff that irritates my friends. That I just don't care.

tmm

[Own2Feet]

I hope to be in a semi-secure place in my later years and saving money now is my way of trying to achieve that. It does bother me that she makes those little irritating (irritating to me) comments to me though. And I really want to know why people pick on frugal people. It must be something about us that pushes their buttons!

[freebird5825]

hmmm...comments about your spending habits, appearance...what's next? i used to get the ol' dress for success baloney. yawn.
i'm hypothesizing that you are a very secure person acquainted with some pretty insecure people.
so just do your own thing!
and grin a bit

[Khan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Own2Feet I hope to be in a semi-secure place in my later years and saving money now is my way of trying to achieve that. It does bother me that she makes those little irritating (irritating to me) comments to me though. And I really want to know why people pick on frugal people. It must be something about us that pushes their buttons!

Maybe you could tell her that her irritating comments 'are irritating' and you will stop associating with her if she keeps up that crap?

[Own2Feet]

"And I really want to know why people pick on frugal people. It must be something about us that pushes their buttons!"

Could it be the same thing that pushes some people's buttons when they see a thin/fit person? (even if that person isn't going around trying to rub thinness/fitness, or frugality for that matter, in their faces): They suspect that person feels superior to themselves, and whether or not it's true, they resent it.

[freebird5825]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Own2Feet I hope to be in a semi-secure place in my later years and saving money now is my way of trying to achieve that. It does bother me that she makes those little irritating (irritating to me) comments to me though. And I really want to know why people pick on frugal people. It must be something about us that pushes their buttons!

independent thinker vs being beholden to latest fads
strong vs weak life goals
stress-free vs worried about the next mail delivery of bills

on and on and on...

[ejman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki Oh yeah - 3 cylinders, no waiting! Bought my old Sprint for $200, replaced the clutch, and drove it like a Spanish mule for 5-6 years. Sister got a great kick out of me driving up to her place of work one day and getting out while taking a call - my cell phone cost more than the car! Wrote off mileage for the rentals every year and every year the mileage paid for all costs and more than bought the car again. 50MPG in tune and 40MPG doing absolutely nothing to it as the last several years went.

Yup can vouch for the 50 mpg. Makes me kind of chuckle at current hybrid mpg...
Amazingly well built too. My daughter was driving it one night in San Francisco when a huge taxicab ran into her ( Ye old left turn didn't see 'em etc etc) The front end was crumpled to about 1/100 of prior size but passenger area totally untouched and not even a scratch on anybody - thank God)

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by barbarus tmm99, do NOT let your friend off the hook when, in the future, you are in much better shape than she. It is because of people like her that the economy is quite likely wrecked beyond repair. Martha, you're not gonna like this but now is now time for healing. This is no time for forgiveness and all coming together for a big hug. The less we lay blame on the guilty, the greater the certainty that the financial profligacy will reoccur. Letting these spendthrifts and their political masters get away with the goods, as is happening right now, kicks merde into the faces of the righteous. We're going to hear a lot about not laying blame, that no one could have seen what was coming, that frugality is foolish and other such dreck. Manure! Let you friend have it with both barrels. Don't hold back. What she did is affecting you who was beneficial to the commonweal, as much as it causes her to personally suffer. Do you have any family? They, in particular the young, are going to be suffering for years thanks to this selfish, asinine behavior. Remember, you are not attacking in a mean-spirited mentality of "I told you so". Instead you are trying to help yourself and everyone else that lives is an economic milieu. That is, everybody. If more people had your financial conservatism, we wouldn't be looking down into a financial abyss right now. It appears that many on this blog were themselves participants in the skulduggery. As least, I have had communication with a number of apologists on here who seem terribly dismissive of those responsible. Thanks for having taking the decent path yourself tmm99. While it's been a lonely path, you've got the satisfaction that many here apparently can not claim, of having done the proper thing. Come to think of it, next time you see her, kick her once for me too.

What the hell are you blathering about?

[Dawg52]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha What the hell are you blathering about?

The ignore feature is a beautiful thing.

[HFWR]

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Originally Posted by Free To Canoe My one friend was so shocked (do I really look that stupid) that I could afford to retire that he accused me of selling drugs in order to afford ER. Free

My retort: I retired to have more time to do drugs...

YouTube - Ricky Nelson - Garden Party 1985

[DallasGuy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound When I was working at megacorps, I used to go to the trashcans near laser printers to pick up discarded printouts. Use: the back side is perfectly blank to use as scratch papers for my engineering calculations and equations. Coworkers look at me as crazy. I know, I know, paper is cheap. But if discarded printouts work, why not? I wonder who else in this forum has done that, since some also recycle dryer sheets?

As a computer programmer I always used the back of old printouts as my scratch paper...why use a brand new piece of paper when the back of a used one is perpectly fine?

[NW-Bound]

Exactly!

What I couldn't figure out was that I sometimes found a stack of clean unprinted paper of maybe 50 sheets tossed in the trash can. Why?

The only thing I could think of was that whoever loaded the printer last couldn't fit entire reams in the tray. So, he/she discarded the portion that overflowed. What a crime! They couldn't even spare the time to put that aside for the next load.

[DAYDREAMER]

I get crap about being frugal all the time. I'm proud of my frugality and they know it.

I have a friend that wants to buy a new bicycle, yet the one he has is the best of the best mountain bikes, just wrong gear ratio for road commuting. I'm trying to convince him to save the 3k for a new bike and buy a proper gear set for $200 for his current awesome bike. His comment "I can always count on my frugal buddy to be the buzz kill". He has 2 kids and a wife that doesn't want him to waste his money. He hates it when I side with his wife. I just don't want to see a buddy throw money away, when he really can't afford it. I'm rubbing off on him slowly, but man, the spend gene is very strong in some people.

Hold your head high about frugality. It is really something to be proud of. If somebody puts you down about being frugal, turn the tables on, and tell them "ya, but is sure feels good to be financially independant"

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmm99 I have noticed that since I tightened my belt a few years ago, I sometimes get comments from this friend about me being cheap. Does being frugal somehow offend people?

Sounds like you need a new friend.

During our working years I used to get comments about our cars-- "Sir, are you still driving that ensignmobile?!? Can't you afford a real car?" I'd look back at the decade-old vehicle appraisingly and say "That car reflects my values, not my net worth."

When we were loading out our submarine for 90-day patrols, our XO used to publicize the weight/volume of the paper we'd had to pack aboard and then encourage everyone to use both sides. By the fifth patrol we were loading less than half the paper of the first patrol and the difference was noticeable in calculating the ship's trim.

We still load up our printer with scrap paper. For most jobs it really has four sides-- front upper & lower and back upper & lower. But now I'm going to have to try the PDF approach for receipts & confirmations-- thanks!

[harley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DallasGuy As a computer programmer I always used the back of old printouts as my scratch paper...why use a brand new piece of paper when the back of a used one is perpectly fine?

One of my programming buddies from my assembler/COBOL days collected huge piles of the old bifold paper from our printouts. It was only a couple of years ago that I stopped getting my Christmas present from him wrapped in green and white striped paper with little holes on the ends. I sort of miss it. I'm talking nearly 20 years of recycled paper. He FIREd from our Megacorp at 48. I had to wait until I was 50 because I bought wrapping paper.

[Frugality_of_Apathy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by harley One of my programming buddies from my assembler/COBOL days collected huge piles of the old bifold paper from our printouts. It was only a couple of years ago that I stopped getting my Christmas present from him wrapped in green and white striped paper with little holes on the ends. I sort of miss it. I'm talking nearly 20 years of recycled paper. He FIREd from our Megacorp at 48. I had to wait until I was 50 because I bought wrapping paper.

I try not to give gifts if I can help it. But if you've got something where the outside of the box isn't important to the operation of the gift, I'll just give it a nice coating of leftover house paint.