"Welcome to Your Daily Smack Upside the Head."
So reads the opening salvo of The Cheapskate Blog, a new offering from the folks over at Time.com. The blog -- the latest in a long line of media endeavors dedicated to the joys of frugality -- promises to help readers save money not by searching for good deals on stuff they buy (though it does that, too) but by trying to persuade them not to buy much at all. Explains The Cheapskate: "Usually, when the quote-unquote 'savvy' consumer sees something he wants to buy, he asks, 'How can I get the best deal on this?' Instead, I ask, 'Just why in holy hell do I need this?'
Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting tired of the media telling me what I need and don't need. And I certainly don't want to be smacked upside the head, especially by a tightwad blogger. One of the alleged silver linings of this recession is that it's freeing us from the tyranny of keeping up with the Joneses. But another tyranny, an even more oppressive one, is taking its place. It's the fiscally correct police, and they're watching every dollar you spend.
Time's Cheapskate blog is just the latest manifestation of this trend, which goes beyond the comparatively benign no-more-latte pieces of yore and those early-in-the-recession stories that ushered in "the new frugality." While those efforts sung the praises of saving money -- not a bad idea, considering America's recent debt binge -- the latest strain preaches the evils of spending it.
Give up your consumerist, materialistic ways, the fiscally correct police hector, and you'll be a happier, better person for it, sort of like a modern-day Henry David Thoreau.
Such was the message of "Spent," a recent piece in The New Republic by communitarian Amitai Etzioni. He proposes that schools "counter conspicuous consumption" by requiring student uniforms; that workplaces institute dress-down policies so employees can "avoid squandering money on suits and other expensive clothes"; and that the government use taxes to "discourage the purchase of ever-larger houses, cause people to favor public transportation over cars, and encourage the use of commercial aviation rather than private jets."
Just what qualifies as an "ever-larger" house Etzioni doesn't say, but he reassures us that he is not being elitist here. "[It] is not a matter of cultural snobbery to note that no one needs [emphasis his] inflatable Santas or plastic flamingos on their front lawn or, for that matter, lawns that are strikingly green even in the scorching heat of summer. No one needs a flat-screen television, not to mention diamonds as a token of love or a master's painting as a source of self-esteem."
Well, for that matter, no one needs a subscription to The New Republic, either. But many people have one and feel happier, or at least better informed, because of it. The point is that one man's need is another man's luxury, and if I feel better sitting at my desk decked out in Dior, that's my business, especially if I swore off daily lattes for a year to afford it. Encouraging people to save money is one thing; telling them exactly what they do and do not need is quite another.
Indeed, nothing so clearly illustrates the folly of such an approach as a recurring feature on The Cheapskate blog, "The Grandparent Rule." "If your grandparents didn't have it, then you probably don't need it," the blog asserts, citing "luxuries" like manicures, housekeepers and stainless-steel appliances as prime examples of things we spoiled brats can do without.
Stainless-steel appliances? Please. My immigrant grandmother didn't have many appliances at all, stainless steel or otherwise, save for an oven, an icebox and a rolling pin, which she used for both rolling dough and for clubbing to death the live carp she bought to make gefilte fish. Should I throw out my food processor in deference to her? After all, she managed to grind that fish by hand, even if it took her all day.
Come to think of it, I have lots of things that my grandparents didn't have, with one of the most expensive being an education. Did I need that? Well, define need. But if my grandparents were alive today, they would most definitely answer yes. Because they wanted nothing more than for their children and their children's children to have a better life than they had. For them, that was most certainly a need.
Yvette Kantrow is executive editor of The Deal.