But where do you draw the line?
I think that perhaps there isn’t a defined line between frugal and cheap, but rather it has to do with a person’s perception of things. For example, a friend of mine lives in a tiny studio apartment. When her very well-to-do parents come to visit, they stay with her. In her tiny studio apartment. Which means that they sleep in her bed and she sleeps on a camping mattress on the floor. Knowing her parents financial situation, I think they’re being cheap by not staying in a hotel (or taking her up on her offer to put them in a hotel), but they think they’re just being frugal, and I’m sure that some of you reading this will take their side.
I have a group of friends from college who get together at least once a year. We’ve been doing this since we graduated, and for the most part, we have more money than we did as recent graduates. But we still treat these trips as we did when we were younger. We crash at someone’s house, buy cheap snack food and drinks, seek out the cheapest Chinese buffet restaurants (though that’s more about the adventure), and at the end of the weekend, divide up the costs and compare the price to previous weekends. It’s almost as if it’s a challenge to see who can create the cheapest weekend in their host town (living in D.C., I never win). Some would say we’re being cheap by not upping the quality of our weekends (“Tickets to something? But that costs money!”), but we just think of it as being smartly frugal.
My (unemployed) roommate thinks I’m cheap when it comes to groceries. When I’m putting parmesan cheese onto pasta, I’m happy with the store brand. Sure, I can taste the difference between the good stuff and the generic stuff, but it’s not so great a difference that I’m willing to spend twice as much. I think I’m being frugal, she thinks I’m just cheap. (I also think she would like to be using my expensive cheese, but that’s another story for another day.)
So what are your lines between frugal and cheap? Bringing your own lunch to work = frugal, bringing your own lunch to a restaurant = cheap? Where do you stand?
To me, frugal is getting the most for your money. Cheap is being frugal at the expense of others. For example, Buying less or lower priced items is frugal. Paying less than your share of a meal, or not tipping a waitress when the service is good is cheap.
I agree with Sarah. Being frugal affects ME. Being cheap affects others.
I have a friend who makes more than twice the amount of money as myself (she has no problem announcing how much she makes to me), takes lavish vacations, is a member of different gyms with different trainers, etc. Every time we get together, and more specifically this most recent time, we met at a BYOB place so I offered to bring a bottle since I had a couple bottles of wine sitting at home. When it came time to paying the tab, she only wanted to pay for her $9 entree, no tax, no tip, so I ended up chipping in the tax and tip for both her and myself, not to mention the fact that I lugged a bottle of wine to the restaurant at the other end of town using public transportation in the middle of summer. That’s cheap. Being frugal is saying: let’s go to the BYOB place, it’ll be cheaper and we’ll split the bill evenly.