I don't think being frugal is a bad thing in of itself. One could almost approach it as a game, but one with tangible rewards. The issue is the opportunity cos

I don't think being frugal is a bad thing in of itself. One could almost approach it as a game, but one with tangible rewards. The issue is the opportunity cost. Because there's a limit to how many pennies you can pinch per month, you will start hitting diminishing returns on time invested trying to reduce spend. There is however no upper bound to how much you can earn, so time spent figuring out ways to increase earnings typically don't hit diminishing returns. In fact, it usually give exponential gains.