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There was a deleted reply that said: > On the other hand, a daily habit of frugality makes it easier to not splurge. My response: that might not be true based

• michaeldhopkins 15y ago
  You're right but take it further. Willpower is a muscle. It gets fatigued on any particular day, but as it is exercised over time it becomes stronger. A daily practitioner of frugality is able to choose the right thing nearly effortlessly compared to someone just beginning to try to save money.
• philwelch 15y ago
  From experience, that doesn't seem to be the case. If you worry about spending money at a certain level, you've defined the battle lines, and splurging desperately on the other side is utterly unthinkable. If $10 for a day's worth of food seems lavish to you, something like even setting foot in a decent restaurant becomes unthinkable. You start to lose the ability to even imagine splurging, because to you spending $15-20 on pizza is splurging. You understand from an intellectual perspective that you can easily spend over $100 at a good restaurant ordering dinner for two, but you don't consider it as a possibility for your own life.