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WASHINGTON—The
burgeoning cheap-pride movement began on a back road in
Accokeek,
Maryland,
with a goof named Jeff Yeager, who retired from
Washington
nonprofit work several years ago and answered the cosmic
calling to be the patron saint of thrift.
In short
order, he found himself on the Today show as a
correspondent on issues of frugality, began writing
about penny-pinching techniques online (www.ultimatecheapskate.com)
and eventually snagged a book deal with Random House’s
Broadway Books. He recently finished the second
leg of his book tour (by bicycle) for The Ultimate
Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches: A Practical (and
Fun) Guide to Enjoying Life More by Spending Less,
which was released in December.
“Yes, we
are cheap, but we are also generous, kind and happy!”
goes the mantra of the cheap-pride movement, as Yeager,
49, details in the book. “We refuse to spend our whole
lives making money we really don’t need to make or spend
in order to enjoy life!”
Now,
Yeager’s pulpit is mobile. Throughout his “Tour de
Cheapskate,” the Washington region’s cheapest man cycled
through South Florida, crashing on the couches of fellow
followers of the frugal life and donating his book-tour
per diem to public libraries. We talked to him about the
practical applications of his miserly evangel.
What is
a good first step toward wresting oneself from the claws
of the dollar?
I think
this idea of a “fiscal fast,” of swearing off the use of
money for some period of time, is incredibly valuable.
It’s an original idea. I’ve done this throughout my
entire adult life. Try to go at least a week without
spending money. If you have a family, everybody ought to
be part of the action. Try to do it for all kinds of
expenses: food, entertainment, clothing and, ideally,
transportation. The great thing about a fiscal fast is
it introduces you to what I’m preaching here. It’s only
a week out of your life.
What
about young people who are living paycheck to paycheck
and may have student loans?
Even
though it’s written from my perspective—a middle-aged
guy who’s done well for himself—I think maybe the advice
I offer in the book is most valuable to young people.
The payoff is just exponential if you take that advice
in your 20s or 30s. Like housing: Consider the novel
idea of finishing in your starter home. Buy a house you
like when you’re relatively young, pay it off as soon as
possible and skip this senseless upgrading to bigger,
better housing....
I don’t
ever want to be too preachy, but I do think, with each
generation, people’s expectations about what they really
want and need have spiraled upward. I’m not convinced
that the cost of living has increased outside the range
of inflation since the ’80s. What has changed is
people’s expectations about what they need and want.
In one
chapter, you go to St. Mary’s County, Maryland, and chat up the Amish. How do they inform the cheapskate mentality?
The
Amish realized hundreds of years ago that, gosh, you
need a little critical judgment here: Just because
something exists doesn’t mean you need to inject it into
your life. Particularly with tech spending, Americans
are of this mindset of “I’m going to get a flat-screen
TV and an iPod; maybe I can’t afford it with this
paycheck, but I’m definitely going to get it.”
It’s
about two things: the impact that mentality has on your
finances—it’s led us to have a negative savings rate for
the first time since the Depression—and the impact that
approach has on your nonfinancial life—you’re chasing
after something you can never get enough of, and it’s
not making us any happier.
Tell me
about the “money step,” which is the bedrock concept of
the book and an antithesis to the “Spend! Spend! Spend!”
mantra of consumer culture.
It’s the
notion that throughout our lives everything we think we
want seems to involve this subconscious exercise of
earning money to spend money to get what we want. We
want good health, so we think that means buying a gym
membership. (We need to ask ourselves), “Do we always
need to go through that step?”
The
dollar is worth less and a recession seems imminent, so
frugality is starting to seem attractive.
Cheap,
as I define it, may be the new cool....It certainly has
real ramifications for the green movement. Green is so
hot right now. I don’t understand how you can—if you’re
an American—embrace the green movement and not admit to
yourself that it means you must consume less in your own
life.
You ever
bump up against people who disagree with you?
The one
that cracks me up is how quite a number of people say,
“For God’s sake, it would be the end of our
economy”—that if everyone believes as Jeff does, the
economy goes down the tubes. Give me a break. I’m one
guy out in Accokeek with one little book weighing in
against the 3,000 commercial messages we get every day
saying, “Buy some more stuff. Spend some more money.”
I’m one guy with one book. I hardly think I’m going to
topple the economy.
That
said, if this cheapskate lifestyle catches on—maybe if
that slows down the economy—I don’t think that’s a bad
thing. The current US economy is both unsustainable to
the environment and unfair to other people on the Earth.
But here’s the good news: It’s also unnecessary in the
end. It’s unnecessary to our happiness. |
