And if you think it makes you so, then you’re seriously deluded.
Being frugal is a good thing in the PF community, I even aspire in some areas of my life to reach this (e.g. not owning furniture, not buying and using commercial products to clean), but just because you know how to pinch pennies, doesn’t make you a morally better person than someone who doesn’t choose to do so.
I am not saying the two are mutually exclusive (e.g. you are frugal and therefore a bad person), but I am saying they’re not mutually inclusive.
Deciding to eat cheap junk food so that you can save a million before the age of 30 are all admirable accomplishments in their own way but it shouldn’t make you think that you’re better than anyone else for doing it.
Likewise, people like me who like to spend money (like me) are not bad or stupid, particularly since I am not in debt and can afford to enjoy my money.
It doesn’t make me a worse person than you.
WHAT’S THE POINT OF HAVING ALL THIS MONEY IF I’M GOING TO ACT LIKE A MISERABLE TROLL?
We just have different priorities and I am less into amassing tens of millions as I am happy to be on track to have a million or three saved by the time I retire, and most importantly, making sure I am happy as a good partner, mother to my children, in a career I love, and having a balanced life I enjoy.
I don’t want all that money if it’s going to warp me, and turn me into a hateful human being.
What kind of lesson would that be to pass on to my children? …that if you have lots of money you can act any way you want with no consideration for anyone else?
See, I could have worked like crazy for the past 8 years and amassed well over half a million or more by now, I’m sure of it.
I could have not gone on all of those yearlong, monthlong, half-my-career-was-spent-on-traveling trips around the world, and stayed at home working like a dog.
I could have decided to not eat as well as I do, and just survive off dollar store ramen with a cracked egg for my sole source of protein.
I could have decided to wear 3 outfits fir the rest of my life.
I CHOSE AND STILL CHOOSE not to do any of that.
Do I regret some of my choices? Yes, a couple in hindsight, but I couldn’t have known what I know now.
I regret for instance, wasting time living in the U.S., but I am happy I made those mistakes and I am far less likely to make the same mistakes again.
So am I stupid?
Am I a bad person for spending that money, and having gained that experience even if I regret in hindsight having done so?
HAVING MONEY DOESN’T MEAN YOU ARE PERFECT
Take Warren Buffett for example — he is a frugal investor who is one of the richest men in the world, but a terrible father by his own admission and his childrens’ as well.
He’s powerful because he’s wealthy. When the Oracle of Omaha speaks, everyone listens, enraptured.
So while I am not saying if you’re rich you’re a terrible person or if you are a great father you’re poor, but just because Buffett knows how to invest his money and save a buck, didn’t automatically make him a good father.
Yes, I know he’s pledging to give away his fortune but that changes nothing for his children.
Nothing he does now can change that he was a terrible father.
He can’t buy his way out of the decisions he has made.
In the same vein, you aren’t a better person because you have more savings than I do, spend less than I do or hate “wasting” money on fashion and electronics.
The decisions you have made to be a rude, anonymous troll on the internet don’t change just because you have money.
By the way, I also don’t believe that just because I make a lot of money, I’m a better person than anyone else.
I may make a lot of money when I work, but that doesn’t mean I want to wield that like a sword to cut down others in my path by disparaging them online.
EVERYTHING YOU ARE SAYING IS A REFLECTION UPON YOU
I actually believe this. What you say and what you do is a reflection upon who you are.
You’re the one who’s unhappy with your own life and decisions, no matter how much you’ve saved or amassed, that you feel the need to disparage and look down upon others to feel better.
CAN YOU REALLY CLAIM TO BE A GOOD PERSON?
Tweeting, writing posts and being otherwise a rude, holier-than-thou, and ill-mannered person just because you don’t spend a lot money or happen to have worked hard to have a lot of it saved up at a tender young age, doesn’t make those ramblings justified.
It just makes you a rude, two-faced person who worked to spend less money and saved up a lot of it.
That’s it. It doesn’t make you a better person.
Maybe you think what you’re doing it’s funny, but I assure you, it isn’t.
Anyway, are you proud of being who you are by writing such posts? Tweeting such mean and hateful things?
Would your family members be proud of you?
Could you go and proudly tell your grandparents that you’ve been heckling, harassing and otherwise being a jackass to other people you may or may not know in real life all because you have more savings than they do?
Or that you know how to spend less money than them and therefore feel justified to make fun of them and be a jackhole online?
What do you think they’d say to that?
Does all that money make you justified in being so mean?
If the answer is “No” and you feel the need to hide behind some mask of anonymous insecurity to bash others for spending money because you’re passive-aggressive, then perhaps you should keep your trap shut.
You may think I’m being a hypocrite, being anonymous and talking about my own troubles anonymously, but while I may talk a lot about my family and the grief they cause me (particularly my father), but it is NOTHING they (and he) are not aware of.
They KNOW how I feel.
I’ve told them plenty of times to their face and I’ve been in some epic family fights as a result.
I don’t like confrontation (starting it, I mean) but I’m not the type to back down from it either.
Can you claim the same about what you’re saying and going to say? I doubt it.
If that were the case, you wouldn’t be doing it anonymously and attacking people you don’t even personally know.
