7 ms·

It feels like a recipe for marital disaster that she's living this extremely frugal lifestyle despite him making good money and he "goes along with it" (her wor

by mpeg 7y ago

It feels like a recipe for marital disaster that she's living this extremely frugal lifestyle despite him making good money and he "goes along with it" (her words)

thatfrenchguy 7y ago
Only if you assume spending more money will make you happier though
- coldtea 7y ago
  It's enough that the husband assumes it to cause marital disaster...
- arkades 7y ago
  As marginal utility goes, though, it sounds like “spending more money” in this story includes things like “having more than one room to live in.” And, admittedly this was an inference rather than baldly stated, “nice vacations.” Money doesn’t just buy a different grade of items. It also buys a whole slew of novel experiences, of which you only get so many in your life. Yeah, some amount of spending can make you happier.
  - Retric 7y ago
    The ROI from vacations when your younger vs much earlier retirement seems to favor early retirement.
    - ademup 7y ago
      I emphatically disagree. If your job has high stress, then relaxing and checking out can pay huge dividends; up to and including the ability to maintain your high stress job. Additionally, for those of us who take more exploration-learning-bucket-list style vacations, the memories and knowledge offer more value the earlier in life you take them, as they contribute to lifelong education. Finally, the vacations provide networking opportunities, opening doors due to shared experiences leading to new friendships and possibly new jobs or clients.
      - Retric 7y ago
        You don’t need to travel to Hawaii to destress or make interesting memories. I simply recommend cheap vacations in your youth.
    - eropple 7y ago
      ...and then you die at 35. Live while you're alive. You don't know when the bus is going to come around that corner a little too fast.
      - nugget 7y ago
        Humanity has been having this debate for thousands of years, e.g. the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper. It's a virtue to work hard and plan for the future. Delayed gratification is a foundational building block of civilization. There's a balance that each person must strike but I'm hesitate to criticize unless someone has parked at one extreme end of the spectrum or the other. The secret may be to more carefully measure and unnderstand experiential ROI from money spent which our traditionally materialistic focused consumer culture does not make very transparent.
      - Retric 7y ago
        That’s more convincing if you ignore interest. I do take long breaks between jobs, but I also avoid debt and save a huge percentage of my income.
- Cyph0n 7y ago
  It is extreme frugality, not just frugality, when you choose to put your dining table in your bedroom. I would honestly never live like this, regardless of my financial goals. I hope the husband is actually enjoying it...
  - tasuki 7y ago
    I disagree that a studio apartment is _extreme_ frugality. Not many years ago, it was standard for people to live on much less space per person than these days. > I would honestly never live like this, regardless of my financial goals. Yes you would. If your financial goal was to have enough money to put food on your table, you'd care less where that table was located.
    - Cyph0n 7y ago
      > I disagree that a studio apartment is _extreme_ frugality. Not many years ago, it was standard for people to live on much less space per person than these days. And I also disagree; I have lived in a studio before. But in this context -- owning a 4 bedroom house yet deciding to rent out the remaining rooms to live in one of the bedrooms -- it is indeed extreme frugality. > Yes you would. If your financial goal was to have enough money to put food on your table, you'd care less where that table was located. So you think that there are people out there who own a 4 bedroom house and have a 7 figure (?) household income and yet struggle to put food on the table?? Or do you just have trouble sticking to context?
      - tasuki 7y ago
        > Or do you just have trouble sticking to context? To be fair you wrote "never", not "within this context".
xenihn 7y ago
Yeah, I've made a bunch of assumptions about what the husband is like based on what can be inferred from this article. I'll keep that to myself because I don't want to offend anyone and get downvoted, though a lot of it is drawn from what I was like when I dated someone like the author. She only had to spend half of her post-China childhood in poverty before her mom started earning doctor money, but she still thought/behaved very much like the writer of this article. Though unlike the author, she hates her parents. I see compulsive frugality as a boon in a capitalist society. Especially in the United States.
- mruts 7y ago
  Hasn’t really helped Japan get out of their 30 year depression, though.
  - thoughtfunction 7y ago
    I think that more comes from their society aging than being credit card debt levels of spending.
  - StillBored 7y ago
    And who wouldn't love to live in their "Depression" They have 2% unemployment and some of the highest quality of living standards in the world. Sounds like they are doing something right. If you opt out of the growth is required mindset its perfectly possible there are other economic models which work just fine to live under despite the scary sounding descriptions.
    - adbge 7y ago
      > And who wouldn't love to live in their "Depression" The Japanese are committing suicide at higher rates than Americans[1], and a million of them have chosen to live as shut-ins rather than participate in society.[2] They're also not having children. Maybe that's your utopia but it sure isn't mine. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori
rhacker 7y ago
Wow, I can't count the number of men I've met that would want a wife that is extremely frugal. Also you're reading into the "goes along with it" a little bit too much - Literally inventing a whole relationship drama from 4 words is a bit insane.
- mwfunk 7y ago
  I dunno, I’ve never seen a positive example of “compulsive frugality”. Obviously it’s not good to live beyond one’s means, but everyone I’ve ever known with money who would brag about their own cheapness was an utterly miserable bastard to be around. Obsessively saving money isn’t any more of a virtue than obsessively spending it, it’s just less explicitly self-destructive. Everyone I’ve ever known with money who valued their own extreme frugality or cheapness seemed like they were just feeding some sort of anxiety, or feeding their materialism and ego in a very roundabout way.
  - nothal 7y ago
    Just look into the FIRE community. Many people are opting out of blatant consumerist attitudes because they realize compulsive frugality is a means of prioritizing what you want.
    - mwfunk 7y ago
      I guess that seems really materialistic and self-destructive to me as well, just from the opposite direction. Obsessing about everything that one could possibly spend money on (early retirement in this case, I believe), then spending one's entire young adulthood obsessing over how to accumulate and not spend money to get it? It's just consumerism and materialism in another form, obsessing over which things to save up for and micromanaging one's finances to get those things. To me the biggest luxury in the world is being able to live reasonably happily within one's means and not having to worry about it. To think about one's finances as little as reasonably possible while not overspending and still getting to have fun with it sometimes, with the confidence that a reasonable amount of it is being saved for retirement someday. It doesn't require being rich, just having a sense of the value of things and the value of one's own time and life and life experiences, and getting good at quick, rough estimates of one's financial situation. The more I have to worry about money the less happy I am, even if it's tons of money and I'm just figuring out how to best utilize it. Obsessing over money leads to a person thinking about nickel-and-dime bullshit throughout the day, every day. That's fun for some people, I get it, but they need to realize they're wasting time thinking about nickel-and-dime bullshit because it's fun to them, not because it's practical or pragmatic to do so. And that's fine if they want to do that, but they just tend to be miserable people to spend time with who are always missing the forest for the trees when living life.

by mpeg 7y ago

It feels like a recipe for marital disaster that she's living this extremely frugal lifestyle despite him making good money and he "goes along with it" (her words)

thatfrenchguy 7y ago

Only if you assume spending more money will make you happier though

coldtea 7y ago
It's enough that the husband assumes it to cause marital disaster...
arkades 7y ago
As marginal utility goes, though, it sounds like “spending more money” in this story includes things like “having more than one room to live in.” And, admittedly this was an inference rather than baldly stated, “nice vacations.” Money doesn’t just buy a different grade of items. It also buys a whole slew of novel experiences, of which you only get so many in your life. Yeah, some amount of spending can make you happier.
- Retric 7y ago
  The ROI from vacations when your younger vs much earlier retirement seems to favor early retirement.
  - ademup 7y ago
    I emphatically disagree. If your job has high stress, then relaxing and checking out can pay huge dividends; up to and including the ability to maintain your high stress job. Additionally, for those of us who take more exploration-learning-bucket-list style vacations, the memories and knowledge offer more value the earlier in life you take them, as they contribute to lifelong education. Finally, the vacations provide networking opportunities, opening doors due to shared experiences leading to new friendships and possibly new jobs or clients.
    - Retric 7y ago
      You don’t need to travel to Hawaii to destress or make interesting memories. I simply recommend cheap vacations in your youth.
  - eropple 7y ago
    ...and then you die at 35. Live while you're alive. You don't know when the bus is going to come around that corner a little too fast.
    - nugget 7y ago
      Humanity has been having this debate for thousands of years, e.g. the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper. It's a virtue to work hard and plan for the future. Delayed gratification is a foundational building block of civilization. There's a balance that each person must strike but I'm hesitate to criticize unless someone has parked at one extreme end of the spectrum or the other. The secret may be to more carefully measure and unnderstand experiential ROI from money spent which our traditionally materialistic focused consumer culture does not make very transparent.
    - Retric 7y ago
      That’s more convincing if you ignore interest. I do take long breaks between jobs, but I also avoid debt and save a huge percentage of my income.
Cyph0n 7y ago
It is extreme frugality, not just frugality, when you choose to put your dining table in your bedroom. I would honestly never live like this, regardless of my financial goals. I hope the husband is actually enjoying it...
- tasuki 7y ago
  I disagree that a studio apartment is _extreme_ frugality. Not many years ago, it was standard for people to live on much less space per person than these days. > I would honestly never live like this, regardless of my financial goals. Yes you would. If your financial goal was to have enough money to put food on your table, you'd care less where that table was located.
  - Cyph0n 7y ago
    > I disagree that a studio apartment is _extreme_ frugality. Not many years ago, it was standard for people to live on much less space per person than these days. And I also disagree; I have lived in a studio before. But in this context -- owning a 4 bedroom house yet deciding to rent out the remaining rooms to live in one of the bedrooms -- it is indeed extreme frugality. > Yes you would. If your financial goal was to have enough money to put food on your table, you'd care less where that table was located. So you think that there are people out there who own a 4 bedroom house and have a 7 figure (?) household income and yet struggle to put food on the table?? Or do you just have trouble sticking to context?
    - tasuki 7y ago
      > Or do you just have trouble sticking to context? To be fair you wrote "never", not "within this context".

xenihn 7y ago

Yeah, I've made a bunch of assumptions about what the husband is like based on what can be inferred from this article. I'll keep that to myself because I don't want to offend anyone and get downvoted, though a lot of it is drawn from what I was like when I dated someone like the author. She only had to spend half of her post-China childhood in poverty before her mom started earning doctor money, but she still thought/behaved very much like the writer of this article. Though unlike the author, she hates her parents. I see compulsive frugality as a boon in a capitalist society. Especially in the United States.

mruts 7y ago
Hasn’t really helped Japan get out of their 30 year depression, though.
- thoughtfunction 7y ago
  I think that more comes from their society aging than being credit card debt levels of spending.
- StillBored 7y ago
  And who wouldn't love to live in their "Depression" They have 2% unemployment and some of the highest quality of living standards in the world. Sounds like they are doing something right. If you opt out of the growth is required mindset its perfectly possible there are other economic models which work just fine to live under despite the scary sounding descriptions.
  - adbge 7y ago
    > And who wouldn't love to live in their "Depression" The Japanese are committing suicide at higher rates than Americans[1], and a million of them have chosen to live as shut-ins rather than participate in society.[2] They're also not having children. Maybe that's your utopia but it sure isn't mine. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

rhacker 7y ago

Wow, I can't count the number of men I've met that would want a wife that is extremely frugal. Also you're reading into the "goes along with it" a little bit too much - Literally inventing a whole relationship drama from 4 words is a bit insane.

mwfunk 7y ago
I dunno, I’ve never seen a positive example of “compulsive frugality”. Obviously it’s not good to live beyond one’s means, but everyone I’ve ever known with money who would brag about their own cheapness was an utterly miserable bastard to be around. Obsessively saving money isn’t any more of a virtue than obsessively spending it, it’s just less explicitly self-destructive. Everyone I’ve ever known with money who valued their own extreme frugality or cheapness seemed like they were just feeding some sort of anxiety, or feeding their materialism and ego in a very roundabout way.
- nothal 7y ago
  Just look into the FIRE community. Many people are opting out of blatant consumerist attitudes because they realize compulsive frugality is a means of prioritizing what you want.
  - mwfunk 7y ago
    I guess that seems really materialistic and self-destructive to me as well, just from the opposite direction. Obsessing about everything that one could possibly spend money on (early retirement in this case, I believe), then spending one's entire young adulthood obsessing over how to accumulate and not spend money to get it? It's just consumerism and materialism in another form, obsessing over which things to save up for and micromanaging one's finances to get those things. To me the biggest luxury in the world is being able to live reasonably happily within one's means and not having to worry about it. To think about one's finances as little as reasonably possible while not overspending and still getting to have fun with it sometimes, with the confidence that a reasonable amount of it is being saved for retirement someday. It doesn't require being rich, just having a sense of the value of things and the value of one's own time and life and life experiences, and getting good at quick, rough estimates of one's financial situation. The more I have to worry about money the less happy I am, even if it's tons of money and I'm just figuring out how to best utilize it. Obsessing over money leads to a person thinking about nickel-and-dime bullshit throughout the day, every day. That's fun for some people, I get it, but they need to realize they're wasting time thinking about nickel-and-dime bullshit because it's fun to them, not because it's practical or pragmatic to do so. And that's fine if they want to do that, but they just tend to be miserable people to spend time with who are always missing the forest for the trees when living life.