(Photo via Flickr: Nedster98)
There’s frugal, then there’s conspicuously frugal.
Which are you?
The frugal person grows tomatoes in the backyard. The conspicuously frugal person plows the front yard and invites the press to watch as local kids sow the seeds.
As the recession continues and job losses mount, people are cutting back on spending. Others who still have the same jobs and incomes they did last year — and I’ll confess right here, I’m one of them — are also cutting way back and can’t seem to stop talking about it. It’s become almost a second identity.
The frugal person trims spending on food. The conspicuously frugal person announces he’s feeding his family on a dollar a day then blogs about it in solidarity with the truly hungry.
So which are you? Frugal? Or conspicuously frugal?
Are you seeing showy displays of frugality at work or home? Is it okay to make thrift a political, status or fashion statement? If you are jobless or poor, what do you think about the frugal or frugal-seeming acts of others?
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We need to change the mind set that being frugal is a sign of cheapness and inferiority. Society has stigmatized frugality in a negative away . Instead we reward consumption and materialism. It is only now that we are beginning to see the detrimental long-term effects of this. So my hats are off to anyone who is conspicuously frugal. In my eyes they should be regarded with highest esteem because of their sustainable way of living.