Brave New Kitty

Being careful with money is a virtue. Shopping sales, buying in bulk, buying off-season, using coupons, comparing prices–all are wise practices. No matter what your income, frugality feels good. Nobody wants to pay more than they have to for anything. More importantly, being careful with money is a source of security. It creates a sense of well-being, and taking care of yourself this way is as important as any other way you learn to take care of yourself. Knowing you can spend wisely, and even put something aside for the future, brings about a kind of confidence that can’t be had by any other means. Frugality is a way to feel powerful and in control of your life.

But some people have a skewed image of frugality. If you struggle with self-esteem issues, or grew up in a family where you weren’t valued as much as you should have been, then you may have learned to use frugality as a way to deprive yourself. I call this the garage sale mentality.

People with the garage sale mentality have an uncomfortable relationship with money. They have frugality and self-deprivation confused, so their decisions about money tend to be extreme and irrational, rooted in the belief that they are undeserving of good things. But because they aren’t consciously aware that their views about money are the result of deeper emotional issues, they feel pride in their ability to live in scarcity, even if that scarcity might not be necessary. These people are usually women, as it tends to be women women who have the cultural role of running a household and who most strongly identify their self-image with frugality. When such identification is combined with low-self esteem or other self-worth issues, the garage sale mentality is often present.

Here are a few examples. I know many women who love garage sales (and yes, this was how I got the idea for the title). Their houses are cluttered with items that they beam with pride about because of the great deals they got. But the vast majority of these items are unnecessary, taking up physical and mental space for these women, while many of their real needs go unattended. I believe that such garage sale purchases literalize how undeserving these women feel, and how emotionally needy they are. They long to be filled up, but the only way they feel okay about doing so is with stuff they don’t really want or need. By doing so, they feel like they’re filling their emotional needs and creating a sense of economic security (I’m a wise shopper!), but sadly, they miss the mark on both counts, so neither need ever gets filled in a satisfying way. If the garage sale shopping is combined with impulsive overspending, as it often is, the result is a double whammy of shame and remorse that feels truly awful.

Another friend of mine loves clothes. But because of her self-image of frugality, she would never consider buying high-quality fabrics or name brands. For her, it’s quantity that’s important, so her closet is packed full of cheap clothes. Pilled acrylic sweaters and out-of-fashion prints, ill-fitting suits, vinyl shoes and purses that crease and crack after a few uses. She can afford good clothes, but it doesn’t occur to her that it might be better to have half the amount at ten times the quality, that she would look better, feel more confident, and be more comfortable if she could bring herself to buy better clothes. In this case, she takes care of her needs, but she does so with an unconscious sense of deprivation that she’s not only unaware of, but even smug about: she has admonished me more than once for spending “too much” on good clothes, although my clothes budget is a fraction of hers, and she knows it. I don’t know how she rationalizes this cognitive dissonance to herself, but it is no coincidence that this woman grew up in a horribly abusive family. Her attitude toward clothing is one of many ways she doesn’t take very good care of herself, yet believes she’s doing the exact opposite. (The most glaring example is her fundamental Christianity, which she thinks has cured her painful upbringing, but in truth has only re-created its shame and rigidity on a different level.)

Yet another woman I know takes her frugality to an extreme on every front. She has a six-figure income and lives in a big, expensive house, yet spends money on nothing. She has a beautiful kitchen and loves to cook, but she has low-quality cookware and knives which, if you are into cooking, you know are the two essentials for a cook to spend money on! She’s like this with everything: clothes, food, household purchases; hers is one of the few houses I’ve seen that is truly sparse–no books, no plants, few knick-knacks, entire rooms void of furnishings. It wouldn’t be so noticeable except that her husband is the opposite. He would never consider depriving himself of something he wanted. Maybe she’s compensating for him, or maybe she’s just taken her role as household organizer to the extreme in an effort to gain approval from a selfish and critical partner. Either way, it misses the mark, having the feel of deprivation all over it. And once again, there is a smugness about it that also feels off, as there is no reason for her to deprive herself of anything, much less express pride in doing so or derision for people who don’t (which she does often). Maybe in this case, frugality is a manifestation of how empty and unsatisfied she feels in her marriage (which I know to be the case), or perhaps with life in general.

I mean no disrespect to any of these women; after all, I am one of them, or at least have been in the past. I mentioned smugness a few times because I think it is an important element of the garage sale mentality. People who are simply frugal in ways that aren’t tied to deeper issues lack this smugness. They aren’t concerned with how other people choose to spend their money, or at least, their concern doesn’t have a strong emotional feel to it. So smugness or judgment about frugality is a good way to recognize the garage sale mentality, in other people and in yourself.

Other clues that you might have the garage sale mentality lie in how you relate to money in general. Does the prospect of having it intimidate you? Do you keep yourself in low-paying jobs, unable to imagine yourself earning more? Do you resent or look down on people who are financially successful? Do you worry about your economic well-being and secretly believe you aren’t capable of taking care of yourself on this front? Do you feel dread at making a budget, or obsess over it? Do you frequently experience buyer’s remorse, even over small items? Do you scrimp and save for months and then impulsively spend too much on something you don’t need? All are indications that you may be using money to deprive yourself because you feel undeserving of good things.

Money is a charged issue for most people, regardless what angle you approach it from, regardless how much or how little of it you have, regardless of sex, race, color, or creed. The garage sale mentality is just one of many, many issues people can have around money. It doesn’t make you bad or weird or different, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But if you’re in this camp, or even suspect you might be in this camp, then you may want to develop a relationship with money that feels better and doesn’t involve depriving yourself in unnecessary ways. Like everything else, money is a way we relate to the world, and having a comfortable relationship with it indicates a comfortable relationship with ourselves. It’s a window into self-awareness, and paying attention to it can result in surprising new ways to know, love, accept, forgive yourself.