Replace the word frugal with cheap in this article and it becomes much better.
Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
31–40 of 211 posts
Re: Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
#32I've heard of an idiom "expensive is cheap" (kinda reminds you of "less is more"). The idea being, or rather my interpretation of it is: something of high quality that's 2x the price of something else of low quality is probably wroth 10x more, so it's actually "cheap" in the sense that you get a lot more than what you pay for.
This is totally a mindfuck designed to get you to buy more expensive stuff and not care. Yes, if you have the money and you've made a vaguely reasoned decision then buy the expensive thing by all means. But don't fork over extra money just because "expensive is cheap."
Re: Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
#33He confuses frugal with cheap.
Re: Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
#34Wow, I disagree. Starting with expensive shoes. I wear flip-flops, shorts, and a t-shirt to work everyday. I'm pretty comfortable. I don't see the correlation between expensive footwear and comfort. Beds. Yes, you spend 1/3 your life in bed. And you spend it unconscious. You spend about 0.03% of your conscious life in bed while falling asleep (30 mins a day). But more importantly: Relax. Just because you make a certa…
I don't see the correlation between expensive footwear and comfort.
Neither did I, until I got plantar fasciitis from wearing cheap shoes, and couldn't stand or walk for more than 10 minutes without pain. Cheap shoes tend to skimp on the parts that provide support and impact resistance.
If nothing else, good shoes are worth the money they save you on podiatry.
Re: Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
#35Besides the incredibly aggravating link-bait title—frugal is not equivalent to cheap. I consider myself to be quite frugal, but for the stuff that I do own, I have no objection to spending extra for the quality, luxury version—I couldn't agree more with the post's message.
I try to live my life in the most minimalistic fashion (see my apartment[1]), and am constantly looking to throw away things that add no value to my experiences. I strive to keep my desktop and mailbox empty. But by no means does that make me cheap: I pay for music, video streaming services. I buy premium items and food, because I know that improving my quality of life is the purpose of having money in the first place.
The cliche but somewhat true statement is: what good is all the money in my bank account going to do me when or if I'm not around to spend them. I'd rather live a good life now than the possibility of a better one in the future.
Re: Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
#36Bruce Sterling said some similar stuff in the Last Viridian Note, and he said it far better: http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/451-500/the_last_viridia... It's a little unfortunate that viridiandesign.org is basically unreadable due to that terrible background image.
The arc90 readability bookmarklet fixes it for me.
Re: Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
#37Bed and chair manufacturers must love this post. While I agree that it's pointless to skimp on things which would make you more productive, it's not necessarily true that the really expensive ones are better.
Yeah, you have to be smart about it really. To me, the quality different between the super cheap mattress and the $500 ones is big. For the $500 to $1000 jump, not so much. Same with chairs, the worst office chairs are terrible and going to leave you with pain. The mid range ones to the top just aren't as big a difference.
Re: Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
#38I've heard of an idiom "expensive is cheap" (kinda reminds you of "less is more"). The idea being, or rather my interpretation of it is: something of high quality that's 2x the price of something else of low quality is probably wroth 10x more, so it's actually "cheap" in the sense that you get a lot more than what you pay for.
This is totally a mindfuck designed to get you to buy more expensive stuff and not care. Yes, if you have the money and you've made a vaguely reasoned decision then buy the expensive thing by all means. But don't fork over extra money just because "expensive is cheap."
It's not meant to be taken literally. If you take "less is more" literally you'd end up living in a cave; of course that's not the intent of the saying.
It's not a mistake to spend a little extra for something you need. This idiom is designed as a counter-argument to people who buy cheap stuff and boast about how they "saved" money by buying cheap crap that doesn't work well and causes you headaches.
Re: Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
#39Another thing not touched on, when you are buying the cheapest you can find you are often buying the product made from the lowest quality materials and assembled by the cheapest workers in the world often in terrible conditions.
Re: Being Frugal Makes You A Loser
#40Article directly contradicts the definition of frugality, talking about being cheap instead.