Stingy Men Association: Is Being Stingy Such a Bad Thing?
So I completed my registration into the Stingy Men Association of Nigeria (SMAN), and here’s what I’ve found out.
hahaha.
In all honesty, this started as pure banter. However, I had some sort of satori moment while pondering on a couple of lines I read from a book, which gave me a broader perspective and understanding of how wealth is created and sustained.
Stingy is not an adjective one will like to be qualified by, but is it really a bad thing?
One of the best books I’ve read on creating and sustaining wealth is Benjamin Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth “— it’s probably the shortest book on wealth creation you’ll ever read. One of the lines that got to me goes thus:
If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting.
The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes
We usually qualify people who don’t spend (or give) as much as we’d want them to as stingy. Maybe this is more a deficiency in our understanding of money, wealth, and how the world works in general than it is a testament to a defect in the character of the other person.
“Your personal experiences with money make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world, but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.”
— Morgan Housel
I told a friend once that the average Nigerian has more cash at hand than the average millionaire in America. I cannot really speculate for sure as to why this is, but it is easier to — in local parlance — declare for the boys when you have cash in hand than when you don’t.
You obviously can’t do that with stock options, can you?
Being Stingy vs. Being Frugal
I had a friend while I was in school. He is one you’d most likely call “stingy.” In fact, I and another friend (who is late now) teased him so much that the day he finally decided to take us out to declare for the boys we were shocked lol.
In hindsight, I admire his tenacity. It takes a lot of will and grit to stay true to your values, even if it is one that isn’t popular.
Most people will call frugality a virtue, and stinginess a vice. However, there is a thin line between being frugal and being stingy, and that line will always be subject to an individual’s general understanding of money.
Patience and honesty, for example, are character traits that are easily identifiable (and agreed upon by others) in a person. Frugality, on the other hand, depends (to an extent) on emotions — say for example how well you like the person.
So that stingy uncle of yours that never seems to have the time to pick your calls might actually be termed as business-savvy by someone else. Crazy, right? lol
Spending vs Saving
Most people tend to be spendthrift, not necessarily because they want to, but out of pride, ego, and plain folly. Contrary to what you may think, financial success has more to do with behaviour than intelligence.
“Doing well with money has little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people.
A genius who loses control of their emotions can be a financial disaster. The opposite is also true. Ordinary folks with no financial education can be wealthy if they have a handful of behavioral skills that have nothing to do with formal measures of intelligence.”
Getting money is one thing. Keeping it is another. Spending is a behaviour, so also is saving.
Like it or not, frugality (or what most people call stinginess) is a central principle you must adhere to if you must become (and most importantly, stay) wealthy.
It’s one of the reasons you don’t see serious-minded people doing giveaways on Instagram, every now and then. If they are, then it’s because they want to get something back in return (usually publicity or data). Nothing is ever free.
People are not stingy. They just love their money enough not to spend it on things that don’t seem to be valuable to them at that moment.
Love, friends, clothes, family, parties, vacation — everything has an estimated value attached to it. If someone is not willing to spend his/her money on them, then they just don’t find them valuable. Whether that is a good or bad thing will always be subjective.
Finally, as someone puts it, If you have so many stingy people in your life, then it’s probably a sign that you beg a lot.
Instead of accusing people of being stingy, just quietly take your sub and go work on your life.
P.S
Happy New Year
