The virtue of thrift

Dear exiled apartment-mates,

By way of introduction (to this endeavor, not to me), I should begin by admitting that I completely stole this format from Amber, who stole it from these people. And then I proselytized it to you because it was so bizarrely compelling. I think also this discussion about the nature of female friendship played an important role, because we've talked about that a lot among ourselves. Also, I figured we have a compatible spectrum of values--not identical, but not extremely divergent, and mostly generous feelings towards one another, so when we disagree, we will not kill each other over it.

We loosely voted on the first topic--thrift--but we can go back to the female friendship question eventually, or soon, if you guys want. Maybe if we do, I will blog about my theory of the lost pseudo-lesbianism of Victorian/Edwardian female friendship, and why we should want that back. I bet you are dying to know about that.

But first, thrift. I know this will demonstrate how much of a terrible person I am, but whenever I read stories now about people "cutting back" because of the economic crisis, I have three words in response: Chickens. Home. Roost. As you know, I am by upbringing a deeply cheap person. This has diminished somewhat--as my mother alleges, under your influence and tutelage during college. I also think Aristotle's Ethics played a role in convincing me that being a diligent penny-pincher is not actually virtuous. But I would like to think that my obsession with Mint.com, Coupons.com, and various online discount codes betrays my continued commitment to the ideals of my parents, who used to drive across town from Target to K-Mart while shopping for school supplies to get the notebooks that were 10 cents each rather than stay in place and pay 12 cents. (Gas was cheaper then.) Also, this is still among my favorite essays ever, the more so because I aspire to emulate it. I have even nudged Sebastian into a lifestyle where he survives on $15 a week worth of groceries (and a lot of mooching from my kitchen).

Nonetheless, I do not live on $15 a week of groceries, so I'm kind of a hypocrite. I do try to minimize major expenses, don't own a car, seek out happy hour specials, shop mostly at H&M, etc. And that makes me feel morally superior to people in credit card debt. But the fact remains that I shop at H&M kind of a lot, like how many scarves and pairs of tights do I really need a lot. I guess the problem is that I have no coherent philosophy of thrift, other than that one should really try hard not to buy stuff I don't need. But that's like those Chevron ads all over the Metro (do you have those, Julia?) with close-ups of attractive people promising to do really noble and laudatory things to save energy like, "I will consider a fuel-efficient vehicle" or "I will unplug stuff more." "I will maybe kind of later figure out why I should save more money after I buy this cute jacket."

Part of the problem seems to me to be that the bar in America is so low that we can feel pretty awesome about our spending habits as long as we have jobs. It almost doesn't matter how much your job pays relative to what you spend because so long as you are employed, you are virtuous, and bad things like bankruptcy should not be allowed befall you. There is, I think, a strong philosophy of work here (there, everywhere). The person who does not work is lazy, incompetent, someone who can't work is to be pitied, and someone who doesn't want to work should be loathed. We are all (that is, we three, not necessarily all of America) pretty invested in having jobs that satisfy us, and will in part define us. Chalk it up to Aristotle, or Marx, or Arendt--but this ethic exists. So that's all good.

But I don't think we have a similarly articulated philosophy of saving. It's not clear to me exactly what it is I'm saving for, aside from the hypothetical house and kids of the somewhat distant future. Even for people who do have some end goal, it's often a short-term desire--vacation, boat, shoes--which, once met, leaves you searching for a new purpose for saving. I don't see how it's good or sustainable to save in order to satisfy a series of ultimately unimportant wanty items. Saving is always to some degree a sacrifice, and it should be rewarded with some other good than lame material wish-fulfillment after wish-fulfillment.

Or maybe not--it's possible that this is just a Puritanical way of thinking minus the salvation part in the end, and if there's no salvation, I guess, why bother?

--Rita