Terry Mitchell

A Cautionary Tale of Too Much Frugality



Posted: Tuesday, January 18, 2011

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

Most people who have known me for very long understand the fact that I am a big advocate of frugality. Having grown up in a poor family from the housing projects, I have always believed in living a frugal lifestyle. Especially in the kind of economy that we have been experiencing for the last several years, living well below one’s means makes sense in so many ways, as I have often outlined in my articles.

However, one can take anything, even something positive, too far. Living frugally is one thing; allowing oneself to be unnecessarily deprived is another. Such is the case with James Smith. No, that’s not his real name. I’m just using it as a substitute name, not to protect the innocent, but because I just can’t remember the guy’s real name.

Anyway, James lived in a small town in the U.S. He worked hard all of his life and lived in a modest, one-bedroom home. He always drove an older-model, plain sedan. He rarely ate out, bought new clothes, replaced any of his furniture or appliances, or took a vacation. He did not subscribe to cable/satellite TV or an Internet service. He never owned a cell phone. He didn’t subscribe to a newspaper or magazine. He did most of his shopping at the local dollar store and Wal-Mart.

Therefore, no one ever had any reason to believe that James had money … until he died. At that time, it was discovered that James had built up nearly $3 million in savings. It’s been a couple of months since I read the news story about him, so I don’t remember whether he had written a will or not, but his fortune was ultimately donated to his hometown to help build a new library. Sure, he provided the town a nice new library for all of its citizens to enjoy, but at what cost? He wasted his life living like a pauper when he could have lived like a king.

Unfortunately, James’ story is not anywhere near unique. I’ve read and heard about many other people whose lives have paralleled that of James. I’ve often wondered why people choose to live like that. Is it a planned thing or are they just so afraid of poverty that they unwittingly volunteer to live the very lifestyle they are trying to avoid being forced upon them? I doubt that we’ll ever know for sure. Anyway, live frugally, but always be mindful of people like James. Guard against his fate. Don’t be that man.
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. He is also the owner of a new privacy-enhanced search engine - http://www.SearchMost.com.

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