Cheapskates & Tightwads: Old Insults Get New Props

Chances are, cheap leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It calls to mind miserly people and flimsy shoes, low blows and short-lived thrills. For Lauren Weber, growing up with a notoriously cheap father meant a winter thermostat set firmly at 50, three-minute showers, and at one point, even rationed toilet paper.

While she's the first to call her father an extremist, she's come to admire his devoted economical lifestyle. There's something authentic and appealing about living on less. And yet, she says, in the lexicon of frugality, the term cheap has been hijacked and dirtied. In short, it's gotten a raw deal.

In her new book In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue, Weber takes us on a fascinating but anti-nostalgic romp through history, tracing the evolution of cheap from pre-Revolutionary times through the present, all the while challenging our notions of what it really means. Her mission: To rescue the maligned term from its gritty, bargain-basement association and transform our understanding of cheap entirely.

"After all," she writes on page three, "When we as a nation and as individuals are so dangerously overleveraged...why is it an insult to be called cheap?"

In the sobering wake of the economic crash (not to mention soaring credit card debt), it seems highly appropriate to revisit, and resurrect, the notion of living with less. And Weber believes that the desire to do so springs as much from a concern from the quality of our lives as it does from our bills.

"I think a lot of people are uneasy about our consumer society," says Weber. "They're not sure this is how they want to live—whether it's keeping up with the joneses or always aspiring to the next newer, better thing. More of us are wondering if this lifestyle is as spiritually or emotionally satisfying as it could be."

But that doesn't change the fact that the idea of being a tightwad is culturally unappealing. "A lot of people hate the word cheap and would be embarrassed to be described that way," says Weber.

Part of elevating cheap to its proper place means embracing what she calls a kind of "ethical cheapness," or cheap with a conscience—which, she says, can help us become more sustainable—and perhaps more satisfied in the process.

Think efficiency, not miserly.
Living on the cheap isn't only about pinching pennies. "My father was an economist, and yet it wasn't about money," she says. "He simply abhorred waste, in any form." Whether it was reusing a teabag ten times or coasting to red lights to avoid wearing down the brakes, she says, he saw great virtue in getting as much as he could out of something. Identify how, in the course of your own day, you can get extra uses from what you have, simply in the name of efficiency.

Be cheap with a vision.
Who can fault you for spending and saving wisely? Let your spending patterns be defined by your larger goals and values. It's not cheap to pass on an expensive dinner if you're trying to save for a downpayment, for example, or because you are paying off debt. Make your cheapness a choice, not a weakness.

Don't stiff the waiter.
Weber draws the line, however, at being cheap at another's expense. Coming up short on your tip or returning shoes to LL Bean after wearing them for 10 years isn't a savvy move, but an unethical one. "The kind of frugality I like best is private restraint and public generosity," she says.

Invest in good stuff.
When in doubt, go for quality, says Weber. "Buying cheap stuff means you'll have to buy more to replace things of poor quality," she says, and this ends up costing you more. Rather than buying the $40 shoes that'll give out within the year, for instance, buy the ones that will last you years. In short, amortize. "I bought a pair of $350 boots, but I've been wearing them five years—which comes out to $70 a year," she says (as opposed to the Vera Wang dress marked down to $50 from $400—a steal, for sure, but she's worn it maybe once).

Soothe your acquisitive itch.
A big part of living with less, says Weber, is taking a closer look at your relationship with stuff and understanding what you feel you need and why. "Cultivate the ability to look around yourself and say, I have enough," she says. Try to quiet that voice in your own mind that tells you that buying any one thing will make you somehow a better or more attractive person.

Give it away.
A great way to counter that acquisitive itch is to make a practice of letting stuff go. Weber tells of a friend who makes it a point, every time she leaves her house, to take something to donate or give to a friend. "It's a great feeling to get rid of stuff," says Weber. "It's not about living like a martyr, either. It can be incredibly gratifying and liberating."

In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue ($16.50) is available for purchase through Amazon.com and Alibris.com, or for rental through BookSwim.com.