Being frugal is for the rich
theoutline.com
Being frugal is for the rich
1–10 of 305 posts
Re: Being frugal is for the rich
#2While it's kind of unrelated to the overall point of the article, it includes the statement, "According to the Federal Reserve, Millennials in their twenties carried an average debt of $22,135 last summer."
The linked Federal Reserve article[1] doesn't seem to directly support that statement, but does say that ~55-60% of 18-29-year-old's used or are using loans to finance their own education, but that, "Among respondents who report that they currently owe student loan debt for their own education, the mean level of this debt is $30,156 and the median is $12,000." (Note: that doesn't include those who have already paid off their debt.)
Re: Being frugal is for the rich
#3The title here seems very inflammatory. The article questions whether some actions (e.g. painting your own home instead of hiring someone to do it) are truly frugal. It goes on to say that the philosophy of frugality is a handmaiden for wealthy.
Maybe so, but why would we discourage good spending habits? For example, choosing to eat one or more meals out each day versus bulk cooking is an option available to most people. Likewise, choosing to spend $800 on rent with roommates versus $1,600 for a studio or one bedroom apartment.
I'm not seeing how millenials or members of the middle class benefit by uncritically opting for more expensive options. My read on frugal culture is spend however much money you want on whatever you want, but do so eyes-wide-open. Break free from all the advertising, inertia, and "keeping up with the joneses".
Frankly I think if more people adopted this style of thinking it would have serious ramifications for the rich and their businesses built on over consumption and debt.
Re: Being frugal is for the rich
#4I realize that TFA is a critique of these silly people, but somehow reading the first two paragraphs seemed to be as much as I would ever need to know about them.
Re: Being frugal is for the rich
#5The title here seems very inflammatory. The article questions whether some actions (e.g. painting your own home instead of hiring someone to do it) are truly frugal. It goes on to say that the philosophy of frugality is a handmaiden for wealthy. Maybe so, but why would we discourage good spending habits? For example, choosing to eat one or more meals out each day versus bulk cooking is an option available to most peo…
I think the title refers more to the idea that those folks selling this frugality made plenty of money already and that financial freedom is what helped them establish their lifestyle... not the frugality they sell.
Re: Being frugal is for the rich
#6The title here seems very inflammatory. The article questions whether some actions (e.g. painting your own home instead of hiring someone to do it) are truly frugal. It goes on to say that the philosophy of frugality is a handmaiden for wealthy. Maybe so, but why would we discourage good spending habits? For example, choosing to eat one or more meals out each day versus bulk cooking is an option available to most peo…
You're missing the point. The 'frugal culture' is selling the idea that this is the road to economic self-sufficiency while omitting or glossing over other significant information, like having a very healthy income stream to begin with.
If you're poor, being frugal is very unlikely to lift you out of poverty. That doesn't mean frugality is bad, but that marketing is as the key to financial stability is deceptive.
Re: Being frugal is for the rich
#7The title here seems very inflammatory. The article questions whether some actions (e.g. painting your own home instead of hiring someone to do it) are truly frugal. It goes on to say that the philosophy of frugality is a handmaiden for wealthy. Maybe so, but why would we discourage good spending habits? For example, choosing to eat one or more meals out each day versus bulk cooking is an option available to most peo…
I guess this is the real motive behind the article:
But here’s the thing. Regardless of intent, these Millennials are telling an older generation of elite Americans — the very people whose policies and financial decisions kneecapped the economy — what they want to hear: that everything is more or less okay, and young people just need to be more thoughtful about their money. And that’s a shitty idea to perpetuate. Because whatever happens in the years ahead, penny-pinching will likely remain a lifestyle enhancement for bourgeois Millennials who possess enough money to enjoy the dividends of being thrifty. For most of us, there are no dividends: just thrift.
It's not about the advice itself -- the advice all seems pretty reasonable -- it's about the place that advice has in the story we tell ourselves about young people. I myself practice many of these thrifty tips, but I cringe to think that the blog posts that people write about them will be used to justify continuing to build a world where they are more and more necessary.
Re: Being frugal is for the rich
#8So some people in a particular generational cohort write books and blogs about their financial independence, but this is bad because it trivializes the actual struggles of other people in their cohort who aren't financially independent? Oh, the horrors!
Re: Being frugal is for the rich
#9Here's the takeaway: the frugals/similar bloggers are bad because they, "are telling an older generation of elite Americans — the very people whose policies and financial decisions kneecapped the economy — what they want to hear: that everything is more or less okay, and young people just need to be more thoughtful about their money."
While it's debatable whether everything is "more or less okay", and -- to some degree -- there are definite systemic issues preventing people from being where they want to be financially, I guarantee you that adopting this attitude ("it's not my fault I can't get ahead, the system is messed up") is going to make you worse off financially vs believing/focusing on what you can control and your own agency.
For example, I do think there are some current millennials who sort of got unlucky with the student loan/college bubble and "were told" (or believed) that they could just borrow whatever they wanted to study whatever they wanted, and it'd all turn out OK. But I'm not sure people graduating high school now nec have that excuse. And if you are graduating high school and reading this, for gods sake, please take it upon yourself to think a bit about what you might like to do and take a long, hard look at what exactly borrowing the median 10's of k's of debt might get you before you do it.
Re: Being frugal is for the rich
#10The title here seems very inflammatory. The article questions whether some actions (e.g. painting your own home instead of hiring someone to do it) are truly frugal. It goes on to say that the philosophy of frugality is a handmaiden for wealthy. Maybe so, but why would we discourage good spending habits? For example, choosing to eat one or more meals out each day versus bulk cooking is an option available to most peo…
I think the title refers more to the idea that those folks selling this frugality made plenty of money already and that financial freedom is what helped them establish their lifestyle... not the frugality they sell.
I agree the article was attempting to take down that family, but even on that count I wasn't convinced. So they have a home in Massachusetts? That hardly makes them "rich". Nor is being able to hire a painting company the exclusive province of the wealthy.
Perhaps pursuing FIRE is something only available to the upper middle class. That's an interesting argument, but not one put forward in the article. Furthermore, I think it's bordering on class warfare to set the upper and lower middle classes against each other. It reeks of divide and conquer, and who benefits? The people pushing over expensive lifestyles funded with debt.