Being stingy is unpleasant behavior in our context. However, even from this type of behavior important lessons can be drawn.
Stingy is not a very nice word to say. Usually when people use it it is to highlight a negative characteristic of someone on money issues. When that person is "tough" or like the roosters "does not put", then he is branded as tight-fisted.
This is probably your case, or you have met several roosters who do not "lay", but save their money and do not use it at all.
However, is being stingy good or bad? It is a question that some people might ask themselves. Either because they are the ones who handle this reality or they know someone who is this way.
In that sense, we are going to deal with the issue of stinginess, even if it sounds funny, to determine if it is good or bad in personal financial management. And how to handle it within the context of effective money management.
What does it really mean to be stingy?
Being cheap, in our American context, is synonymous with a person who does not spend at all. Someone who refuses to share what he has, money or not, and who lives in a state, practically, of a beggar, alluding that everything is expensive or overvalued.
However, although it seems difficult to believe, based on the context of the origin of the word, a stingy person is the one who skimps or reserves something, keeping it for himself. [1] Therefore, in essence, and without wanting to seek the fifth leg of the cat, a miser is a person who values his money or his possessions. That he understands that what he has is important and only he / she should handle it.
That does not mean that it is an appropriate or correct action. In fact, there are conditions where these people fall into obsessive pathologies that, without a doubt, are not beneficial for them or for those around them.
Taking this into consideration, we all have some kind of level of stinginess. In other words, we all handle something that we don't want to share; that it is exclusive to us and that we prefer to keep it within our context of control. So we could say that there are different degrees in which people can skimp or reserve this or that thing to keep for themselves, as the definition suggests.
And if this is so, then we must be cautious in using the term in a pejorative way, because in doing so we are including ourselves, although perhaps to a lesser degree, but without a doubt we are referring to ourselves.
Stinginess within the context of financial management
After seeing that being stingy is something that touches us all, at different levels or degrees of course; So how can we adjust this reality to personal financial management? In other words, how to make stinginess a tool, without falling into pathologies that damage our finances or quality of life, to better manage money?
For this we want to offer some guidelines that can serve as a reference when it comes to managing your money. Focusing on the possible virtues that can come from this condition, which are not that many, but undoubtedly can be extracted and extrapolated to good personal financial management.
Frugality
For this we have to see it from the context of frugality or austerity. Where we see money as a scarce resource. That is, money is limited. You don't have a tree from which you can harvest the money fruit. But you have to work to get it. And that effort should not go to waste.
Therefore, to live in an austere or frugal way does not mean that you will live in poverty having the possibility of being in a comfortable position. On the contrary, as you grow financially, you must adjust to both the reality of affluence and the comforts of this state.
However, the focus of being frugal is to have a life where needs and desires are covered without waste or excess. To have excesses, as the word itself says, is to have extra things that you are not going to use, therefore it is not necessary.
And in social issues, it is common for people to assume behaviors that respond more to what society says welfare should be, rather than what welfare represents for you. Therefore, it is paramount that you know what are those needs and desires that you want to satisfy. Those that are linked to your well-being and that guarantee emotional, physical and mental stability.
Smart Consumption
After identifying the needs and desires you want to cover, you have to make way for smart consumption. This is summarized in knowing what to buy and when to buy it.
This is something interesting to analyze, because for intelligent consumption to have an effect, two essential factors must converge: what you are looking for (what to buy) and the right time (when to buy it). Therefore, situations may arise where you find what you want or need but it is not the right time; or vice versa, you are at the right time and you do not find what you want or need.
In that sense, our recommendation is that you define the times and the things you want. In fact, you must first know what you want and then set a time to achieve it. By doing this you will be guaranteeing a smart consumption, because, beforehand, you will know and work for that goal. But better yet, you will be able to create the fund or source to pay for what you want to achieve.
To make it more practical, imagine you want to buy a vehicle. You already know what type of vehicle it is, the price, etc. What you need to do is to define when you are going to buy it. For this, the primary indicator should be when you have the money.
In that sense, if you establish a savings plan, or the way you plan to finance it, the right time will be when these variables are completed. In this case, the right time is when you accumulate enough money to take the step.
So by implementing this type of strategy, you will probably come across as a cheapskate, but in reality what you are doing is sticking to a plan, valuing what you have and looking at the future benefits; which are usually more pleasant and rewarding than the passengers of the moment.
Be selective with your consumption
Something that can help you and that usually characterizes the cheapskate is that they are selective when it comes to choosing a consumer item. They take their time to choose and, although their benchmark is "cheap", you can apply to your money management the patience to choose what you are looking for.
This is one of the advantages of buying on the internet. In general, you don't always buy what you want the first time you find it, but you go through a process of searching, checking, searching again, comparing, etc., and after you have done all this, you buy.
The important thing about all this is that if you do it this way, the purchase or consumption will not be based on an emotion, which is one of the main strategies of commerce; appeal to emotion or momentary impulse for the person to make the purchase action.
Therefore, within the framework of what is possible, and thanks to the advances in technology, you can acquire part of your needs through the Internet, thus avoiding emotional purchases and choosing from a wide range of items and services that meet your needs.
Resolution
Being stingy is not a good thing. Because it involves antisocial behaviors, promoting purposeless hoarding in addition to emotional, physical and mental instability.
However, when we contextualize what governs the principle of the cheapskate (valuing your money), then we can see that some good things can be extracted from this. And for that there are some guidelines, well punctual, that you can apply to your financial management, and that we understand that they can be useful to you.
Number one is frugality, which boils down to living with what you need and what satisfies you, this includes both needs and desires, without reaching the point of excess. The second guideline you can apply is smart consumption, knowing what to buy and when to buy it. And finally, be selective in your consumption, identifying the different possibilities within the market, and choosing the one that best suits what you are looking for.
So if this post on whether being cheap is good or bad has been useful to you, we invite you to comment in the box below, your opinions and contributions are of great importance to this community and enrich the debate. And, continuing our work to promote good financial management, we would like to recommend the book *Cómo vivir bien cuando las cosas van mal= How to Live Well When Things Go Wrong, written by Andrés Panasiuk.
I hope you liked this article I will be bringing some more content in the future not related to money or cryptocurrencies but more to popular culture among other topics here pandoru1997 have a great day.
