Psychology of Stinginess

Withholding is a description of a trait found in self-absorbed people. These people have little regard for others. Many refer to stingy people as “takers” not “givers”. Their paucity of giving behaviors applies to emotions as well as materialistic behaviors. These people are by nature shallower and more envious of others. Feeling possessive of what they have satisfies their need for control. Stingy people tend to be negative and lack a sense of reciprocity. Stingy people are often cold and distant. They often lack the capacity for intimacy. Without a moral center, stingy people become adept at manipulation. Expecting too much from a stingy person is unwise.

Cheap, or rather frugal people are so because of different reasons. Some are frugal because of upbringing, some because of experience and some because they’re worried that they would be taken advantage of financially. The last set of people wouldn’t spend money unless they can make sure that they’re somehow “ safe”. –  Rahul Ramabhadran

Stingy. Yuck. This is one of the least flattering words that can be used to describe someone. And rightly so. Stingy means not generous or liberal, sparing or scant in using or spending.

But what if I were to tell you that when it comes to personal finance, stinginess, in every positive angle of the word, could actually be the difference between you retiring comfortably or having to work well into your retirement years. It could be the parachute that could save you from endless (and mindless) spending on things that add no value to your life.

Compare stinginess to frugality: Read https://www.positivepsychology.org.ng/frugality-achieving-your-financial-goals-in-difficult-times

Stinginess is the opposite of generosity. While a generous person gives freely- often finding giving a pleasurable activity, a stingy person withholds and finds giving hard and uncomfortable. Though stinginess is commonly associated with money, it manifests in other areas too.

A stingy per­son is re­ferred as a grasp­ing old miser, espe­cially, one who is ex­tremely stingy with cash. While a gen­er­ous per­son gives or lend freely and of­ten finds giv­ing a plea­sur­able ac­tiv­ity, a stingy per­son with­holds and finds giv­ing hard and un­comfort­able. While a gen­er­ous per­son gives or lend freely and of­ten finds giv­ing a plea­sur­able ac­tiv­ity, a stingy per­son with­holds and finds giv­ing hard and un­com­fort­able.

They take more and give less. They go to great lengths to ‘save’ money. Sav­ing money is not a bad trait, but a stingy per­son sac­ri­fices ex­ces­sive amounts of time and en­ergy just to save a lit­tle money. They take more and give less. They go to great lengths to ‘save’ money. Sav­ing money is not a bad trait, but a stingy per­son sac­ri­fices ex­ces­sive amounts of time and en­ergy just to save a lit­tle money.

They usu­ally love bor­row­ing stuff from other peo­ple in­stead of buy­ing their own. And once they bor­row things, they al­ways con­ve­niently for­get to re­turn them. Annoying, isn’t it?

Don’t be mis­taken, stingi­ness is dif­fer­ent from fru­gal­ity which is an in­tel­li­gent and ef­fi­cient use of time, en­ergy and re­sources.

Stingy people find it hard to give or lend money to others. They take more and give less. They go to great lengths to ‘save’ money. I’m not saying that saving money isn’t a good thing. But a stingy person sacrifices inordinate amounts of time and energy just to save a little money.

Forms of Stinginess

Though stingi­ness is com­monly as­so­ci­ated with money, it man­i­fests in other ar­eas too. The other com­mon type of stingi­ness be­sides money and prop­er­ties is emo­tional stingi­ness that de­notes a per­son re­sists the need to share his emo­tions with peo­ple in­clud­ing those who are close to him.

This type of stingi­ness has a lot to do with fear of in­ti­macy and the fear of be­ing con­trolled. A per­son ger­mi­nates the fear of in­ti­macy for var­i­ous rea­sons but the most com­mon rea­son is not trust­ing peo­ple. This lack of trust can be traced back to past ex­pe­ri­ences where they trusted some­one and the re­sult was neg­a­tive. Or they wit­nessed some­one hav­ing such a neg­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ence.

For in­stance, a girl whose par­ents di­vorced and her fa­ther left her in the care of her mother might learn not to trust men. In her mind, men can leave you be­hind any time. Such a girl might al­ways have trust is­sues with men and, there­fore, she may pre­fer not to share her emo­tions with any man.

Stinginess and frugality

Stinginess is not the same as frugality. While frugality is an intelligent and efficient use of time, energy and resources, stinginess is a form of fear- a fear of not having enough. It motivates a person not to give away his possessions even if giving them away won’t cause them any problems.

What causes stinginess?

It’s usually a person’s past experiences that make them stingy. A child who grew up in a poor family may develop financial insecurity. They constantly witness their family members worrying about money, so they do it too.

Therefore, the primary reason why a person exhibits stinginess is that they feel insecure about money. This financial insecurity makes it hard for them to give away something that they ‘believe’ they lack.

I intentionally used the word ‘believe’ because the financial insecurity of a stingy person may either be real or perceived. Even though a person may have lots of money, they may still feel insecure deep down. Thus, they behave in a stingy manner.

Emotional stinginess

As I mentioned earlier, stinginess is not just about finances. A person may be stingy in other life areas too. The other common type of stinginess besides ‘money-and-possessions-stinginess’ is emotional stinginess.

By emotional stinginess, I mean that a person refuses to share his emotions with people including those who are close to him. Not sharing your emotions with people who don’t matter to you is understandable but why would a person not share their emotions with those who matter to them?

This type of stinginess has a lot to do with two fears- fear of intimacy and the fear of being controlled.

Stinginess and fear

A person develops the fear of intimacy for various reasons but the most common reason is not trusting people. This lack of trust can be traced back to past experiences where they trusted someone and the consequence was negative. Or they witnessed someone having such a negative experience.

For instance, a girl whose parents divorced and her father left her in the care of her mother might learn not to trust men. In her mind, men can leave you behind any time. Such a girl might always have trust issues with men and, therefore, she may prefer not to share her emotions with any man and develop a belief that “men aren’t trustworthy”.

A person who fears being controlled doesn’t like to share their emotions, even with those close to them. They feel that it would make them vulnerable. According to them, if they open themselves up to others, they’ll be manipulated easily and their emotional weaknesses will come to the fore.

They think that if they display their love for someone, the latter would develop expectations of being loved by them. That someone would start demanding more love and attention from them, therefore controlling them in the process. Stingi­ness is a form of fear. A fear of not hav­ing enough. It mo­ti­vates a per­son not to give away his pos­ses­sions even if giv­ing them away won’t cause them any prob­lems.

Look­ing back, could it be that Charles Dick­ens un­der­stood the predica­ment of be­ing greedy and stingy when he wrote his fa­mous clas­sic story novel “A Christ­mas Carols” on De­cem­ber 19, 1843? Ac­cord­ingly, Scrooge may have had a good rea­son for be­ing stingy af­ter all. He knew what eco­nomic hard­ship was like, and that shaped the per­son he be­came.

Could this re­ally be the rea­son Scrooge held on to his money? Was this why he got espe­cially ir­ri­tated when peo­ple blow their sav­ings on Christ­mas? Could this even be why his re­la­tion­ship with Belle fell apart? He feared rais­ing chil­dren in poverty?

The pri­mary rea­son why a per­son dis­plays stingi­ness is that he feels inse­cure about money which makes it hard for him to give away some­thing that he thinks he lacks be­cause even though a per­son may have lots of money, he may still feel inse­cure deep down.

Fear of be­ing con­trolled is an­other fac­tor.

It is a com­mon fear be­cause as chil­dren we all have been con­trolled in one way or the other by our par­ents. For some, this con­trol wasn’t much of a prob­lem. Those who felt it threat­ened their free­dom de­vel­oped a fear of be­ing con­trolled by oth­ers.

Cons of stingy living

Living this lifestyle is about balance, and sometimes when overdone can cause disadvantages. Here are a couple of reasons why stingy living can be difficult.

Being misunderstood

Life isn’t lived in a vacuum. Inevitably, you’ll have to make financial decisions that involve friends and family, and your new approach to money may not be taken warmly. Under such scenarios, what can you do? What often helps is managing expectations upfront.

A classic example that I have encountered quite a few times myself is around eating out for a friend’s birthday or another celebratory event. When you’re with a big group, you’ll often find that some people come prepared to splurge and will order bottles of wine and a full 3-course meal.

If you’re not planning to spend much, it may be wise to have a quick conversation on the side with the host letting them know that you’re excited to attend the dinner and that you’re looking to stay within the cost of your meal.

That way, when the bill comes, and someone who you don’t know is put in charge of splitting the bill, your host can set boundaries on how the bill should be handled.

Taking it all too far

As with anything else in life, stinginess, when done in excess, could negatively impact your level of enjoyment of your day-to-day routine and your social interactions. It can lead to self-denial and missed opportunities to meet and fellowship with others, all in the name of being frugal.

Wisdom must be exercised, and strong consideration should be made on what you value and what you’re willing to do without.

A per­son who fears be­ing con­trolled doesn’t like to share his emo­tions, even with those close to him. He feels that it would make him vul­ner­a­ble.

Ac­cord­ing to him, if he opens him­self up to oth­ers, he will be wan­gled eas­ily and his emo­tional weak­nesses will come to the fore. A re­la­tion­ship in which both or ei­ther of the part­ners is emo­tion­ally stingy – they don’t share their true emo­tions – is un­likely to be an in­ti­mate one.

Mean­while, hav­ing money is just as cru­cial as we are nat­u­rally and in­nately de­ter­mined by sur­vival in­stincts. Un­sur­pris­ingly, a con­ver­gence be­tween the two – friend­ship and money – is in­evitable, and more of­ten than not, leave us with very tough cir­cum­stances and sit­u­a­tions, espe­cially when deal­ing with stingy or freeload­ing mooches.

A relationship in which both or either of the partners is emotionally stingy- they don’t share their true emotions- is unlikely to be an intimate one.

Here are sev­eral ways to deal with friends of that na­ture with­out putting too much strain on the friend­ship:

• Granted, it will be dif­fi­cult to con­front friend espe­cially if he gets de­fen­sive. How­ever there is no other way to go about it with­out let­ting this friend be aware that you are un­com­fort­able with his money habits or stingi­ness.
• While it may take time for him to ad­dress your con­cerns, you can save your­self from be­ing taken ad­van­tage of by sug­gest­ing ac­tiv­i­ties that re­quire lit­tle to no money and turn down his in­vi­ta­tions to pricey restau­rants.
• If the same prob­lems per­sist six months down the road when you have given him one too many chances to be a de­cent friend and when the friend­ship does not bring you joy what­so­ever but only be­gins to make you feel drained, used or stressed upon, it’s time to re-e­val­u­ate the re­la­tion­ship.
• Don’t crit­i­cize your friend in pub­lic. Any heated con­fronta­tion done in pub­lic can be hu­mil­i­at­ing and even more so when money is in­volved. It sim­ply gets ex­ac­er­bated when you know other peo­ple are peer­ing over, eaves­drop­ping on the drama and an­tic­i­pat­ing a pos­si­ble cat fight.
• Last but not least, no mat­ter how you choose to ap­proach this sticky sit­u­a­tion, be­ware that once a friend­ship be­comes in­fin­itely dam­aged, it is nearly im­pos­si­ble to patch things up af­ter­wards.

Read about frugality>> https://www.positivepsychology.org.ng/frugality-achieving-your-financial-goals-in-difficult-times

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