On Money: The Virtue of Frugality

A bit of a reflection on my relationship with money. I have at least one more post worth of material, but perhaps not enough for a series.

I’ve always been frugal. As the child of immigrants, I’ve grown up intensely aware of the existence of money, and the advantages it conferred: material goods and experiences; that it also granted power and status was beyond me until a much later age, and even then I’m not sure exactly what it is that the wealthy upper echelons do. My family was never poor, but we were careful about our spending. When a buck could be saved, it was.

My parents, then I, quickly figured out that packaged consumer goods went were on sale cyclically, and we could buy a little extra when prices were low and wait until the rest of the month to buy more. It made sense to buy clothes when they were cheap, especially for quickly growing children who wouldn’t mind wearing last season’s colours, or would grow into a large sweater. Books were usually bought when steeply discounted, since libraries were a near-perfect substitute, but we somehow managed to work up a family library of over a thousand books.

At the same time, that money saved was spent on other things deemed important. One thing they always paid full price for were lessons: swimming, piano, French, skating, and taekwondo. Some oddly specific things we would always buy branded and stay away from generic as well, like Nike sports apparel, Sony electronics, Toyota/Lexus cars, and eventually all sorts of clothes. We’d also frequently…