This is peripherally related - just a head-shaker to me.
First off, my mom did a heck of a job managing the finances for a family with one wage earner and 5 kids. Coupons and sales and a backyard garden and her sewing machine and recycling/reusing before it was common - that was my childhood in the 50s and 60s. You never threw away a plastic bag in our house, or a margarine tub, or a twist-tie.
Now widowed and in her 70s, and quite comfortable financially, thanks to her mad skillz and my late dad’s financial planning, she still washes zip-lock bags for reuse and buys cheap tooth brushes from the dollar store. But at the same time, she has no problem at all taking all of us, our spouses, and our kids out to eat at really, really nice restaurants, putting no restrictions on us at all, and picking up the tab for over $1K for a meal. It’s just something she likes to do and she can easily afford (on occasion, not weekly.) It just cracks me up every time I see a well-worn zip bag drying on her counter or go home with leftovers in a recycled take-out container. It took me a long time to not feel guilty about using paper towels - no, Mom never bought them. We used rags that were washed and reused…
Oh, **FairyChatMom **, we might be related. My mom is the poster child for “penny wise and pound foolish.” Since leaving home I refuse to wash and rinse plastic bags, I don’t save used foil and I recycle jars. I’m completely out of control!
She does things like make my sister and brother-in-law drive her across town to the big-lot store because she has a $1 coupon that is expiring. The gas alone costs more than that.
My MIL passed about 3 years ago in her late 80s. She would clip coupons and insist they drive miles and miles to save 5c on milk or whatever. They had a 7 figure portfolio, but at age 88 she was going to save 5c, come hell or high water.
Well, you don’t think she got to the point she can take you all out for super-fancy dinners by throwing away her money on Ziplocks and Gladware, do you? Your mom has it just right–what extra happiness or ease would she get from buying more zip bags and storage bowls? None. But she gets a great deal of happiness out of taking you all out for dinner now and again. There’s nothing pound foolish about spending money on something you find worthwhile.
We’re living in a classic penny-wise, pound-foolish situation right now.
We’ve got work that needs doing (lots of infrastructure repair stuff, for instance) that we’ll have to do sometime, whether we like it or not. And we’ve got people who need the work.
If we spent some money to put the two together, we’d be out of this recession faster, and we as a nation would be richer. Instead, we’re engaging in false - and self-destructive to boot - savings because we’re worried about deficits, debt, and the like.
I don’t do this, and agree it doesn’t make financial sense. However, it would be satisfying to reward the more reasonably priced establishment just out of principle.
My gas tank hold 10 gallons. When it bugs me that gas was 3 cents cheaper at the station I passed this morning, I remind myself that I would only have saved 30 cents , in any case. Not worth stressing over!
I work on a military base that turns on their steam around November 1st every year. Steam lines run throughout the base and powers heaters and such for each building. Around April 15th of each year (maybe earlier or later each year depending on the weather outlook), the steam is turned off until November 1. So if you suddenly get a cold day in late April, guess what? Your office is cold. Much of the steam lines are old and leaking.
There is a project on base to convert three or four buildings from steam line to natural gas. I asked one of the people working For Base Engineering why the whole base isn’t being converted from steam to natural gas. He said that is the eventual plan (no idea how long of a time line it’ll be) but that’d it’d be too expensive to do it as one massive project.
That isn’t penny wise pound foolish. That’s just having priorities. The expression means your frugality actually costs money in the long run. Like trying to put the bare minimum to cover you shopping trip on the meter, then you get a $60 parking ticket, all because you tried to save a quarter. It’s economizing in the wrong place. You are economizing in the right places.
This is me all over the place! I try to remind myself that if it’s less than a couple of dollars, it’s not worth the hassle of going out of my way or making a U-turn or whatever.
I have to wonder how much she spends on hot water and dish detergent to wash those plastic bags, and honest to goodness, for as many as she uses, it’s probably the difference between buying one box a year or two.
And I didn’t mean to say that treating the family was foolish - I think it’s really nice of her and overly generous. What I don’t get is the extreme penny-pinching that literally amounts to pennies. She’s not hurting anyone, and maybe it’s just so much a part of her that she’ll never quit. I just find the contrast to be funny. She’ll spend thousands every year going on cruises or trips with her seniors group, but she won’t buy a souvenir t-shirt if it’s more than $5. Not exactly penny wise-pound foolish, but an interesting point of view all the same.
That’s a part of the equation that very few people take into account. As a lowly office temp, I’m billed out to a company at between $25 and $35 per hour. My computer geek brother-in-law bills out at $100 per hour. People really do need to take their time into account when looking at how much things cost them. (My brother-in-law gets it - he would almost always prefer to pay a professional to do things he doesn’t want to do.)
Maybe they would; maybe it shouldn’t be up to them.
I have the same mother as some of you (we call re-used plastic tubs “Mennonite tupperware” ). I was darning holes in my cheap cotton athletic socks one day when I did the math on the cost of buying new socks - at less than a buck a pair, I’m just buying new ones, and damn the torpedoes!
I’ve worked for many companies that were penny wise and pound foolish when it came to staffing levels - you can set your watch by staff getting burned out and quitting when staff levels aren’t adequate for the work that needs to be done, but companies keep trying to somehow make it work this time. Some even brag about it and call it, “Working lean,” like that somehow makes things different.
Another example from a different arena was the Alberta government cutting medical positions and hospitals to the bone to eliminate a debt that really didn’t need to be eliminated that ruthlessly. 20 years later, we still haven’t recovered here from those deep cuts, and the money they’re throwing down the bottomless hole of trying to catch up - oy vey.
{Missed this first time around} I was doing that too, and again I did the math and figured out that those little baggies are something like two cents a bag - again, I’m chucking the used ones in the recycling bin and damn the torpedoes!
I’m still having trouble with this one - I absolutely hate wasting food, but I do compost at home, so I can take my leftovers home and throw them in the garden. I loathe throwing perfectly good meat away, though - I need to make friends with a local dog so he can have my meat scraps.
God bless her.