Cheap confessions
It’s that time again, when we neglect our careful budgeting and indulge in a pre-millennial-style spending spree that won’t be paid off until January 2006 (some finance charges may apply). It’s also time for the news media to obsess about where we’re shopping, how early we’re starting, what exactly we’re buying, who it’s for and how much we’re spending, which is way too much.
According to some consumer analysts, each of us will shell out $700 this holiday season to keep friends and family glutted with stuff. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Americans charged $10 billion just to their Visa cards, nearly 14% more than last year.
If that sounds like an outrageous sum, it is. But most of us lose track of our plastic this time of year, realizing the error of our ways only in January, when the credit card bill arrives as three pages instead of the usual two.
By my rough accounting, $700 isn’t even accurate. For me, at least, it’s low. Counting my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law and their ever-increasing spawn; my parents, my siblings and their significant others; my own kid and the old ball and chain, I’m looking at something closer to a grand. If I shop wisely.
Knee-deep into the year’s busiest shopping season, many of you may already be despairing, resigned to swiping that credit card until it demagnetizes and cashiers are forced to key in the numbers by hand as long lines of aggro shoppers wait behind you clutching iPods and “Shrek 2” DVDs.
Not me. And not because I lined up a 5 a.m. for the $25 bicycle at Wal-Mart on Black Friday.
I’m a cheapskate. That’s right. I’m a penny pincher. A Scrooge. A scrimp. Call me what you will, but I will not be the one going into debt this holiday season.
To be clear, I am never cheap with gifts. Skimping on presents is no way to keep greedy friends and family in my good graces. In fact, that likely would stop the steady, reciprocal flow of goodies coming my way in the future.
When I say I’m cheap, I mean with myself, because getting cheap with myself allows me to be generous where it counts: when shopping for (and in front of) others.
Ever wonder how rich people stay rich? They’re cheap too. They buy Kate Spade purses from a stall, not a store. They drive Porsche Boxsters but fill up at Arco. They sip two-buck Chuck by themselves but serve Clos du Bois at parties.
They are stingy on the sly -- in private or among strangers, but never when anyone they know is around. They understand the cardinal rule of the cheapskate: Keep it to yourself.
Being a cheapskate in a nation of conspicuous shoppers can be embarrassing. Whenever I’m feeling ashamed of my closet miserliness, I just change my perspective, looking at it as something of a game: How low can I go?
Some areas, of course, cannot be compromised. Any woman with a strand of narcissism won’t leave her hair in the hands of Supercuts. But there are plenty of other opportunities for slumming.
Instead of spa pedicures, I seek out salons that are run down and virtually empty -- places where the glaring staff takes more delight than usual in sawing down my toenails and ripping my eyebrows into shape. But they get the job done for $10 less.
I rarely step my pedicured foot in a clothing store. EBay, I’ve found, gives me plenty of fashion options without the cruel fitting-room mirrors and unflattering fluorescent light. If my PayPal account is running low, I just rummage through my drawers for last season’s dregs and put them up for auction. Yes, someone did buy my Snap-On Tools belt buckle last week. As long as I’m taking digital pictures, I scoop up whatever other junk I’ve got lying around and sell that too. Old sunglasses. Unused lamps. Inappropriate presents that even I won’t re-gift.
I’d sell books too, but I usually check those out from the library. I do the other obvious things too: clip coupons, pack my lunch. I always buy a pound of coffee beans to get the free cup of joe at Peet’s. And I may be the only person who takes some pleasure in showering at the gym instead of at home, knowing that I’m saving a few cents on my water bill.
Otherwise, I try to stay home and away from temptation.
Lured out to dinner, I have on occasion used the old “I forgot my wallet” trick. But very rarely, usually for an expensive dinner with a group to cover me. Come bill time, my inability to cough up cash induced a competitive chivalry among my companions. Presuming I haven’t “forgotten” my wallet with the same people before, the debt will likely be forgotten and thus forgiven.
Sleazy? Yeah, maybe. But I’ve saved a surprising amount of cash this year shaving those pennies off my water bill and selling old Gucci sunglasses.
It might not add up to the $700-plus I’m expected to spend on gifts, but hey, it’s a start.
Susan Carpenter can be reached at susan.carpenter
@latimes.com.
