The return of thrift

I agree with the sentiment and will match my thrift over the course of my life against most people in the US but I remember another column of Brooks where he talked about the war between the people with big kitchens and people with big cars. Everybody likes to look at someone else's consumption and say its wasteful while the house, kitchen appliances, electronics, furnishings, clothes, car, or travel that they didn't need were somehow virtuous or necessary.

Fact is, that saving really is its own reward and probably the biggest boost to further thrift. When you've struggled to save the money for something, you're reluctant to spend it. My wife and I actually even had a mad money account for frivolous spending and when we got enough in it to do anything, we could never spend it all (or even half) and put it into our long-terms savings. When you're using credit, you measure by "can I handle the payment." When you're saving you think, "if I spend it, it will stop growing." Suddenly, you can get by with a lesser car, cheaper furnishings, less consumer electronics or more modest travel.

And it works. I was raised below the poverty level and consider myself properous beyond my imagination. If you saw how we live however, you'd never guess.

In my 20's I read the book "Your Money or Your Life." While I think the author goes to far in places. His basic idea of computing your real wage and translating the cost of goods into hours of your life is a great idea. So I'm all for the idea of frugality since my life is finite.

One troubling thought is that our economy has become addicted to debt to keep growing. If people cut back en mass I'm not sure how things would go in the short run. Obviously it would be better in the long run.

The credit card companies bear a large responsibility for the consumer debt problem.

As the documentary Maxed Out shows all too well, the credit card companies prey on the poor and those who cannot afford to have a credit card (such as college students).

The credit card companies make most of their money from their weakest customers. So corporate greed (not just consumer greed) is a huge part of the problem.

Cosimano - the notion that saving somehow inhibits the economy is a great fallacy of our time. If you're talking about socking away cash in a mattress, maybe there's a point there. But if you mean what most of us mean by saving, i.e. putting earned dollars into a bank account, then nothing could be better for the economy.

Obviously saving is better for the individual saving the dollar than spending that dollar on unneeded perishable or luxury goods would be. Richer and leaner is better than poorer and fatter. That's not an insignificant benefit to the economy in itself; the individual saving the dollar is that much less likely to become dependent on the inefficient, expensive mechanisms of government erected to keep the poor afloat.

But saving money is even more obviously good for the economy when you consider that it is not at all like "hiding" the saved dollars in a mattress, but rather it constitutes a loan to a bank. When you give the bank a dollar you're saying "please hold this dollar and pay me interest on it, until I come back to collect it some day in the future." The bank then turns around and injects that dollar back into the economy, usually in the form of a loan to a business. That business creates jobs, and hopefully also goods or services of some value.

Sure, you could have bought a big Snickers bar at CVS instead of socking that dollar into a savings account. Maybe the net effect on the economy would arguably be the same. But you'd be a dollar poorer and 5.2 grams of saturated fat unhealthier, instead of watching that dollar grow to your and your children's benefit as it stimulates the economy through the banking system.

Please don't continue to perpetuate the pernicious myth that saving stagnates the economy.

Right, because the credit card companies forced their victims into signing up. I agree that many of their promotions can be pretty deceptive, but if one is responsible about credit to begin with then that never comes into play.

RD: "One of the key points of "Crunchy Cons" is criticizing the profligate spending habits of Americans, likening them to loose sexual morals. Self-discipline, and self-governance, are what's required."

Rod, I think you've stumbled on a new theory in political science. Loose sexual morals and profligate spending habits are related....there was a balanced budget when Clinton was in office so he had sex to compensate....now, there's no sex in the White House, so Bush spent us into a huge deficit...I guess neither was very self-disciplined. LOL