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I have a client I'll call Linda Loaded. When making coffee, she is so frugal that she puts less coffee into the coffeemaker than she should and compensates by, when the coffee is ready, squeezing the filter with the hot grounds in her hand to get the concentrated coffee into her cup, incurring a bit of pain. To save a few pennies.
She is worth $10 million dollars.
Not surprisingly, I asked her why she does it.
LL: Being not wasteful is core to who I am, why I'm worth $10 million, and why I'm able to live a life with far fewer compromises than most people have to make.
I made every dollar myself, never more than an upper-middle class income, but I invested it prudently, bought things prudently, use my time prudently, and have a healthy respect for the power of thrift.
MN: Do you consider yourself a cheapskate?
LL: Not at all. When something is worth the money, I spend it without a second thought...although I must admit I make time-effective efforts to get a good price.
MN: Can you give me an example?
I've changed the specifics in her answer to this and some subsequent questions to protect her anonymity.
LL: Well, I decided to replace the window in my breakfast room with a big bow window. Prices ranged from $2,000 to $4,000. I chose the $4,000 one because it is far more energy efficient, beautiful, with a far narrower frame so the view is less obstructed. Oh, but I took a half hour to compare a half dozen vendors, negotiated with the lowest-cost one, who wanted $3,600 and I got it for $3,000.
MN: So even though you're worth $10,000,000, it's worth the time and stress to check out a half dozen vendors and negotiate?
LL: The day I think it's not worth a half hour of my time to save $600 is the day they'll need to put me in a home.
MN: What about the notion that the window dealer is poorer than you and the money is cosmically better off in his pocket than yours?
LL: He's probably making a good living so that extra $600 will probably go toward niceties: jewelry, furniture, vacations, crap like that. I have set up an operating foundation that gives money to people whose lives will really improve as a result of that $600. Just last week, my foundation gave $5,000 to a guy who wants to do by-phone mentoring for kids who are feeling ignored in school and at home.
MN: What do you tell your son about money, frugality, and so on?
LL: I tell him the things I'm telling you but I don't think that's what changes people. If he ends up adopting my values, it's because he always sees me walking the talk.
MN: You sound like most of the millionaires in that book, The Millionaire Next Door.
LL: Yes except that I'm the Ten-Millionaire Next Door.
Marty Nemko's bio is in Wikipedia.
