Why do frugal people always brag about it online?
 

I always notice the people who brag about making $200k a year and renting a place or having a mortgage for only $800 in the same breath. Congrats! You are a cheapskate! Want a cookie?

You only live once, I say enjoy your money. Just because a person drives a nice car or has a nice home doesn't make him a fool as long as they are still saving some money and staying out of debt:2 cents:

No worse than the fake ballers who pretend like they have a lot of money.

Wondering why you are so offended...

If your mortgage is only $800, you have more of your money left over to enjoy. Think about it :)

Your monthly income should not match your monthly bills.

Not offended. Its just annoying when I'm reading comments on real estate sites and captain frugalnuts always needs to pop in.

Why would you have an $800 mortgage when you buy a house in Detroit for three times that amount? If everyone with access to $10,000 bought a home in Detroit, Michigan would be the state of the future.

I'm seriously considering moving there and buying a whole fucking neighbourhood. You can grab a city block for under 100K.

Those Captain Frugalnuts probably didn't lose their houses like millions of other people that got in over their head. :2 cents:

And you could call it the geek squad block. Like the Italians, Blacks, and every other race... you could own your own geek block. I'm almost interested.

I'm happy for them. They still are fucking annoying. They love to put down anybody who enjoys the finer things in life. If they just say they have an $800/mo mortgage that is one thing but they always have to add in how they have a household income of $200k or whatever. Its like they are proud to live like poor people and tell you about it. I don't get it.

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:smilie_we

ADG

Then you have to live in Detroit. . . the places that those houses are in are so run down and so nasty it would take a major movement to turn it around and most people would never move there unless they also knew that they would be able to get a job that is as good or better than the one they have now wherever they live.

Making a sizeable down payment on a nice place so they can have a small $800 a month mortgage is impressive. I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about the people who brag about how they have big incomes but live in tiny, cheap places and drive 10 year old cars they paid off already. Its like a badge of honor. Unless they are giving away a bunch of that extra money to charity, they are just cheapskates and proud of it :2 cents:

This may come as a surprise to you, but not everyone is the same. Different goals and aspirations for all :winkwink:

But I bet only 15-20% of people who have a nice car or home ARE saving money.

Only 2-3% of people make $200k a year or more. But if look at the cars around here, you'd wonder.. An incredible amount of $80k+ cars around.

How much money do you need to own a Ferrari? $300k buys one... So if you have $350k, can you afford one? Obviously no. You COULD buy one, but you'd be obviously retarded. Even with a million dollars, you'd be pretty stupid.

But tell a kid with a pretty good job he should wait to buy that new $90k Audi (with probably $5,000 in the bank) and you're a "hater".

People just don't understand money.

So let me get this straight.

Person A has a ton of money invested, drives a normal car, wears normal clothes, and lives in a normal place. This person is likely very content with their life, and has a very low stress level. They are not very worried about the bumps in life, because they planned and prepared for that.

Person B has no money invested, drives an expensive flashy car, wears expensive trendy clothes, and lives in a fancy place. This person likely has trouble finding comfort in life, and is always stressed about their life. The slightest change in income or health and the house of cards comes tumbling down.

And your argument is that Person A is always bragging? If they do explain how they live, it's usually one on one.. Person B drives around in their brag-mobile every day. They want everyone (especially all the strangers) to see how badass they are. Their $3,000 watch, their $300 jeans, what do you think those things are for? Telling the time?

A random rant about nothing? Has Paul Markham hacked somebody's account already?

not everyone is driven by material possessions, some prefer to live simple, comfortable lives with peace of mind and a sense of security...

Speaking from personal experience I can say that I know at least 10 people/couples that live in pretty nice "McMansion" houses, have a couple of nice cars, nice furniture etc. They don't have Ferraris or anything like that, but they live a life that would lead you to believe they are upper middle class people. None of them has anything more than a few hundred dollars in a savings account. Every one of them lives paycheck to paycheck.

One of the couples, last year, had the wife get hurt and she was out of work for about 6 months. She got disability, but it only came to about half of what she made when she was working. Within 3 months they had one care repossessed and they traded the other one in so they could get a lower payment. By the time she went back to work they were about 2 months behind on most of their bills.

Had they just had one nice car and one average car and a four bedroom house instead of a five bedroom house they could have been saving some money and they would have been able to survive this unscathed.

Exactly. The OP doesn't even make sense.

It's not neccessarily bragging, it's more likely people who have recently woken up to the fact you don't *have* to act like a baller and they are recognising the comfort in saving and being secure vs the comfort in fitting in and keeping up with the Joneses.

It's also a bit of an arbitrary line depending on where you value the comfort of your current experience vs your future experience. It's going to be different for everyone.

There is also opportunity cost. If you're earning 200k and renting it really depends on what you're doing with the rest of your money that decides whether you're truly doing the best thing financially.

To me it's pretty simple.. Never be so frugal you forgo too much enjoyment, never be so prolifigate you forgo security or opportunity. Or at the very least, be frugal about some things so you can be prolifigate about others.

I don't mind the frugal guys. They'll never need handouts or bailouts like the guys that spend up and go bust. But I do understand what you mean if it's the guys that nitpick everything or use their own ignorance/lack of empathy as the basis of criticism. (Like the cheapskates/cultural troglodytes that bash eating out anywhere that costs more than a hamburger.)

You really have to know the situation and the reasoning behind it.

Brand new car in my garage, and I drive a 1990 Chevy Stepside four wheel drive with 160k miles on it. I bought it last November as an "extra car" thinking it would be good for occasional dump runs and buying furniture or what not.

Truck is way more fun.

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Why the hell would you want to live in Detroit?

Pretty sure OP - on numerous occasions - has boasted about high income and enjoying finer things in life. How is that any different?

(Not that I believe anything I read on GFY)

A lot of extremely rich people got to where they are by being at least somewhat frugal. Meanwhile a lot of pro athletes for instance are broke 5 years later and think they deserve some sympathy. There's nothing wrong with blowing some money - there's something wrong with blowing most or all of your money.

if you're mortgage is only 800 bucks you either made a huge downpayment or are living in a shithole.

The statistics for cars in here is that the average person has a car worth 10x their monthly income

Is the cookie free ???

I can afford to buy a big expensive luxurary automobile but my little 25 year old Ford works just fine. There is no reason for me to waste hard work on buying some sort of status symbol trying to impress status symbol idiots.

Bref ; When you work hard for your money you begin to understand it's value.

them detroit nigars will kill yo ass. looks worse than haiti in many parts and i'm not bullshitting. rundown shanty houses with no doors/windows surrounded by thugs and beatup non running cars

you're proud of that 80's truck, this is the 5th time i've seen it :winkwink:

Obviously you don't know what you are talking about. :2 cents:

Or you bought it before the bubble. Or you live in an area never subjected to the bubble. Or you refinanced. Or you bought a REO. Or...

i suppose there are exceptions but what kind of place is someone getting for an 800 a month mortgage say with only 10% down? 150k? maybe for something in a small town or if you bought 20 years ago and still have another 5 left on that 25 year mortgage but tyoically, for the average person who is only a few years into their mortgage and not taking into account any huge deals someone might of gotten right after the market crashed..maybe i see things different because here in canada, there was no housing crash. prices are high unless its a shithole or your in the middle of nowhere.

I barely even read this. Do you know how much time I just saved? Pfft.. losers

Actually, I love to brag about saving money on this or that. I live on barely anything so yeah.. I hated turning my furnace on this year because in the mild months my utility bill is like 75 bucks. It's going to jump into the hundreds now by burning gas for heat.

I eat about 150 bucks in food per month. Yep. It's true. I'm even overweight.

Of course this has NOTHING to do with having surplus money (what a concept) and then not spending it. It's just how I was raised and how I live. My sneakers are duct taped up in the back where they wore through and I just replaced the insoles, lmfao. Maybe it's ALMOST time to possibly consider thinking about buying a new pair. If it fits in a budget.

This :thumbsup

One question, OP.

Do you have a retirement plan? Savings? Investments?

Or do you just have a lifestyle and when you can't work or things don't go completely your way (never invented that 1 in a million product or got famous like you hoped) then your frugal neighbours will be paying for your ass through their taxes?

not to mention property taxes are still high so you'd be paying a tonne for those along with waiting about 15-25 years for the city to 'turn around' hehe

speculation is the wrong way to go.. buy in an area were people want to live, then you can at least rent it out and collect passive income in the meantime.

'Live your life'... every guy has a different point of view on life and living it...

My car is worth about 0.2x my monthly income. If that.

I love it, and I'll hate the day when we have to part.

V6, leather seats, 210hp, and I still get comments about how nice she looks.

I'm thinking about buying a second one actually.

Shit sorry, I'll stop bragging! :D

Now that shit is just ridiculous.

I've heard of people grabbing lots of ketchup packets at restaurants and filling up their bottles at home too.

This thread confounds me. I am a frugal blog/online community junkie.

My grandmother did this until the day she died. Well she didn't fill the bottle...you just used ketchup packets.

Living through the great depression gave a lot of people an important lesson.

when you're self employed you always have the risk that your income goes to zero tomorrow. can you survive a year with no income? if not you better start saving.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I don't think I'm on that level, but out of entertainment, can you share some of them please?

I used to be frugal. Saved all the time. It worked. I had a lot of money saved up, but wasn't really doing anything special.

Now I'm frugal with the things that I don't care about, but I spend whatever the cost is on the things that I do care about. I also put my money towards investment and growth, instead of letting it sit in a bank account doing nothing (essentially losing value.)

I would rather see people frugal than deep in credit card debt because they can't manage their finances, but please people, your savings don't go with you after you die. Enjoy life. You work hard for your money, I hope, put it to good use.

Glad somebody caught it!

When I get fast food, I usually save whatever they give me in the bag. Packets, napkins, silverware. No need to waste. But I don't grab extra purposefully.

Though I will admit, I never really need to buy ketchup.