5 signs that you are stingy, not frugal - a simple test for greed

Pathologically thrifty people, in their desire to get as much as possible and give as little as possible, sometimes reach the point of absurdity, therefore, as the famous proverb says, the stingy have to pay double. This character trait is frowned upon and often confused with greed. But these concepts have some differences.

Postponing life “for later”

A thrifty person always knows what he needs first and what can wait. He is also well aware of what expenses he needs to avoid without harming himself and his loved ones.

And this justifies him: with such a person you can be sure that he will always have funds “on hand” when they are needed.

But greedy people behave differently. They will never spend a penny on the little pleasures of life. For example, going to the movies or a restaurant, which, by the way, has long ceased to be a luxury. And he looks with contempt at people who allow themselves to enjoy every minute they live.

Definition of Greed

Greed is an immoderate desire to enjoy all possible benefits alone, without sharing them with other people, even the closest ones.

Such a person (selfish person) is capable and even loves to spend money on things, services and entertainment, but only if only he is the owner of the pleasure of spending.

It seems unthinkable for a greedy person to help another person financially for free and remain without benefit. True greed stems from immense selfishness - the priority of one’s own desires and needs. This character quality can be aggressive or fear-based. The first is expressed in the desire to possess as many values ​​as possible, even if they belong to others. The second manifests itself as a desire to preserve one’s material resources at all costs and is generated by the fear of losing them.

You will find 100 reasons why you shouldn't spend your money

A stingy person shudders even at the thought that the amount of his money may decrease. He is ready to come up with any excuses, make cunning arguments, just to remain with his full wallet.

Even necessary expenses cause mental discomfort in the “stingy person.”

But a frugal person behaves completely differently. Any expenditure is a joy for him, because he knows that he won’t buy anything extra anyway.

Definition in the dictionary

In the dictionary we see two interpretations of the word “self-interest”.

• The first of them - modern - is the thirst for profit.
• The second meaning of “self-interest” is outdated - profit, income, benefit.

That is, before the word did not have a negative connotation, it was neutral, reflecting only one side of the business relationship. Now it refers to characterizing the qualities of individual people and not at all from the good side.

The conflictologist's dictionary gives a more detailed understanding of what self-interest is. This is a person’s passion for acquisition, the constant desire to make money, greed for wealth, for money, greed for big profits.

Avoid spending instead of planning

A stingy person does not want to spend money even on himself, and it is in vain to talk about others. At the same time, he considers himself hyper-economical, and reproaches addressed to him regarding the fact that he is a greedy person irritate and incredibly offend him.

This cannot be said about a thrifty person who builds a schedule of income and expenses using effective planning tools. It records the necessary goods and services for which a specific amount of money needs to be spent.

And the remainder always successfully goes into the “family piggy bank.”

Traits of stinginess

Stinginess is not synonymous with such a positive character quality as frugality. If a thrifty individual is able to manage funds wisely, as well as control income and expenses, then a stingy person (miser) does not want to spend money at all, neither on himself nor on others.

A real miser experiences true pleasure from accumulating material wealth. Such a person experiences satisfaction only from the possession of these resources. When they are spent, great disappointment sets in. It doesn’t matter whether money is spent on primary needs or “wasted.” A pathological miser will regret the loss, and will not experience any joy from a new thing or purchased service.

The “maybe it will come in handy” principle

It is difficult for a stingy person to part with not only money, but also with things that have long been classified as “trash.” As a result, he accumulates a whole bunch of unnecessary items, clothes, shoes and other household items that he does not need at all, because he has not used them for a long time.

But life according to the principle “maybe it will come in handy” continues, and as a result, the greedy’s home becomes like a warehouse or a flea market.

A frugal person does not behave this way. He will never buy something that he won’t use, because instead of it he can buy something more suitable and useful.

What is the difference between stinginess, greed and frugality?

And we come to the main question of the article, what is the difference between stinginess, greed and frugality? As you noticed in the analysis of the concepts of stinginess, thrift and greed - these are all derivatives of frugality. And if in the case of frugality, positive dynamics can be traced, but with stinginess and greed, grief and suffering, discontent and depression follow.

The main difference between frugality and stinginess and greed is balance and understanding of what is required for a happy, fulfilling life, and the ability to give up excesses, but without crossing the line of renouncing necessary things.

A thrifty person will always help the disadvantaged, support his family, and also lend a helping hand to colleagues and friends. Thrift and the desire to save helps to look for new ways to implement complex processes and develop new technologies in all spheres of life.

Thrift or greed?

Stinginess entails limiting the budget and blocking opportunities to develop one's potential. But greed! Greed entails loss of energy and denial of a full, happy life. And in addition to his own discomfort, a greedy person receives reproach from society, but a person is a social being and needs, more than anyone else, approval from family and society. Without this, he can exist, but not fully live.

Psychologists are confident that frugality and refusal to consume excesses are the healthy dynamics of our future, where all nations will reconsider their outlook on life and learn to maintain an ideal balance of needs and opportunities. But as soon as you see symptoms of stinginess and, even more so, greed in yourself or your loved ones, give up these vices, because the deeper a person plunges into the vice of greed, the worse his quality of life, as well as that of those around him.

Miser pays twice

Greedy people often get into trouble because of their desire to purchase a product or service at the lowest cost. At the same time, he is only interested in price, and quality fades into the background.

Due to this irrational approach, a stingy person gets a lot of trouble with the cheap option he has chosen, which leads to repeated costs, but for a higher quality product or service.

You need to learn to distinguish greed from frugality, and try not to “fret” over money, denying yourself even the slightest joys. This is of no use. Saving is very good, but if there is a lot of it, then this is already greed.

Main differences between the concepts

When they say about a person that he is stingy, selfish or greedy, they basically mean the same thing. An image of a person immediately appears who is trying to gain control of as much wealth as possible and remain their sole administrator.

What is the difference between greed and stinginess:

• The miser and the self-seeker strive to accumulate funds. But, if for the first, accumulation and retention are an end in itself, then the second wants to own cash to feed his own egoism.
• A stingy person often denies himself anything: he wears things out to holes, even if he has money to update his wardrobe. A greedy person does not like to deny himself anything, so he is able to spend a large amount of material money, but only for personal needs.
• Both the miser and the greedy do not like to give things away, but if the stingy one simply seeks to preserve his own savings, then in the case of aggressive greed, the person will also want to take someone else’s.

A greedy person is a self-seeking person who does not want to give what is his, but wants to take what is someone else’s. And a stingy person is a miser who accumulates his own wealth, but basically does not lay claim to the benefits of others. Both of the considered character qualities are negative and if they are detected in the personality structure, it is necessary to work long and diligently on oneself.

Type No. 2 – Stingy

This type is not much different from the previous one, but you can still notice some obvious signs. Such a guy, of course, will take his girlfriend to a restaurant, although, more likely, to a cafe. There he will invite her to order something cheaper, citing financial difficulties, and will demand the same “savings” from her.

Such a person knows all the sales and stock stores; he will fight with the seller over the cost of the goods, although they are not that expensive. A tight-fisted guy will never leave a tip in a restaurant, and even more so, he will try to save money on a girl until she notices it.

Few people can stand it, so it is likely that he will soon be left alone with his selfish nature. Only a girl with nerves of steel could tolerate such a person.

Ways to change the behavior of a greedy man

Let's assume that during the conversation it became obvious that the guy is stingy or very economical. In this case, you will have to admit that it is unlikely that you will be able to radically change his attitude towards money. You can only slightly adjust your usual behavior. True, the process can take a long time.

1. Get rid of the attitude: “I don’t need anything”
   Often, at the stage of dating, girls, putting on the mask of a prude, make it clear to their boyfriend that expensive gifts, restaurants, and entertainment do not interest them at all. They are completely happy without all this. In fact, it is natural for a man to fulfill the wishes of his lady, and this behavior extinguishes the male desire to be generous.
2. Ask for help
   A man must provide his other half with the help she needs, and in this process a woman needs to act patiently and tactfully. For this to become a habit, the lady herself will have to learn to ask for help and not refuse if a man is ready to help. You should also not forget to thank your partner even for a small favor. Encouragement and gratitude will strengthen a man’s desire to always be there and show care.
3. Praise and reward
   A man feels significant and important when a girl sincerely admires his actions. A tight-fisted gentleman may become more capable of showing generosity and care for his beloved if he hears praise and gratitude addressed to him. He definitely doesn't want to offend or disappoint her.
4. Take it in its entirety
   Perhaps for some, greed does not seem too much of a disadvantage. A girl can fully accept this position and even encourage the desire to save. Here it is only important not to go too far, so as not to turn into a modern Plyushkin from the poem “Dead Souls”.

5. Respect a man's goals and plans
   A woman who has decided to marry a frugal (to put it mildly) man will have to learn how to properly influence her partner. You need to try to understand what your man dreams of, what goals he plans to achieve, and help him in every possible way. Even big goals can be achieved if you do not oppose yourself to your husband and do not try to put hard pressure.
6. Using carrots and sticks
   A woman’s weapon is her emotions, and they must be used skillfully. A man must feel that his greed is causing his wife’s bad mood and well-being. And if he pays attention to her requests, then the woman blossoms, she has more energy and strength.
7. Don't forget to thank
   a man, even for a small gift or service. The partner should see sincere joy in the eyes of his chosen one, hear words of admiration and gratitude. For this reason, a man will try to overcome his stinginess.
8. A woman also needs to be generous.
   Showing generosity is very simple, and for this you do not need to be rich in material terms. Kind and inspiring words, smiles, attention, a loving attitude - a woman can generously give all of this to her partner.
9. Joint management of the family budget
   To ensure that your spouse has no doubts about the rational and targeted spending of family funds, it is advisable to make several joint shopping trips and ask him to personally pay utility bills.
10. Effect of age
    If you don't change anything, problems most often get worse with age. The same applies to stinginess. A young person under 25 will be able to quickly understand that greed interferes with building trusting and harmonious relationships. But if a man has reached adulthood, then all his beliefs have been formed and strengthened, so it is quite difficult to change his position.

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11. Only love changes for the better.
    It is possible to defeat the greed of a representative of the stronger sex only with the help of love. If love reigns in a couple, then the partners manage to accept each other as they are. First, you can understand the reasons for the wrong attitude towards money and gradually improve the situation for the better.
12. Be the first to give gifts.
    Find a reason to give a small surprise to your boyfriend. Perhaps this will push him to take a reciprocal step. It could even be a handmade postcard. On the contrary, an expensive gift can put your date in an awkward position.
13. Create trust
    A man should feel that you are committed to a long-term and serious relationship. Increase the level of trust between you. Perhaps then he will not be so sensitive about expenses.
14. Make a shopping plan together
    If you don’t want to cause a negative reaction from a man, then get into the habit of planning a budget together. Start saving money for a joint vacation, apartment renovation, or purchasing large items (furniture, household appliances). If your partner sees that you are not “pulling the blanket” only on yourself, but are acting honestly, in good faith and in the common interests, then his attitude will also change. He will understand that you can open not only his heart, but also his wallet.

How to do it?

• Be an example for your friend. Give him gifts, treat him to dinner, and do not skimp on kind deeds and words.
• Treat your friend's greed with a smile and humor. Let him understand that you notice his greed, and you don’t like it, but you are not going to give up your friend.
• It also makes sense to teach your friend “lessons of greed” from time to time, mirroring his attitude towards you. Again, without anger or moralizing. Let him feel how insulting it is to be the friend of a greedy person.

And most importantly, be magnanimous, merciful and generous yourself . It is impossible to remain greedy when you are surrounded by kind and bright people, whose words and actions come from the heart.

Have you ever had greedy friends in your life? And how did you build relationships with them? Share your stories in the comments below!

Table

Being greedy is terrible. Why?

In our capitalist era, it is difficult to find a person who is not prone to greed. Especially when success is equated with material wealth. Of course, the desire to have enough money for a decent standard of living is normal.

But being greedy is terrible. "Why?" – the reader will ask. Yes, because this quality of character does not allow a person to be happy: it squeezes the soul, like a boa constrictor, and prevents one from breathing freely.

Let's take a closer look at how greed limits a person:

• Constant savings on yourself. A stingy person counts every penny; he cannot relax and at least sometimes not think about how much he spent.
• Greed gives rise to envy. Such a person always notices wealthier people. He does not feel sincere joy for his friend - in his heart he envies him.
• Self-interest. A greedy person comes from personal gain: he is incapable of doing good deeds just like that, without expecting anything in return.

To sum up, we can say that being greedy is terrible, since a stingy person does not bring happiness to himself or to other people.

Greed

According to the dictionary of Ozhegov and Shvedov, the word “greedy” has two meanings:

1. Selfish, greedy.
2. Desiring something with great passion and expressing this desire.

Thus, we also observe two shades of this word. In the first case, it is judgmental. And in the second case, it is important what exactly a person wants. If he strives not for money, but for knowledge, then he deserves not censure, but praise.

So, for example, A.S. Griboyedov in “Woe from Wit” talks about a mind “hungry for knowledge”, about arousing the passion for creative and beautiful arts. However, today the words “greedy” and “greed” are used less and less often in speech. More often they say “greed” and “greedy”.

What did Pushkin and Gogol think about this?

All of these human characteristics are very aptly described by A.S. Pushkin in “The Miserly Knight”. The protagonist's ultimate pleasure lies in his "lucky day" when he can put a handful of gold coins into the "sixth chest, not yet full." But his desires are not satisfied with this, he is not satiated with them. As long as he lives in the world, the stingy knight cannot get rid of the desire to accumulate more and more gold, filling his chests with it.

N.V. Gogol in “Dead Souls” brought out such vivid characters as the utter miser Plyushkin and the greedy money-lover Chichikov. The writers demonstrated how the desire to live richly from a normal human desire can turn into a very obsessive, overvalued idea, become a kind of mania that replaces human reason with blind passion.

Saving and Greed: What's the Difference?

09/10/2017 7 932 4 Reading time: 10 min. Rating:

Author

: Konstantin Bely

Saving and greed : where is the line between these concepts? Which person is thrifty and which one is stingy? How to be economical without being greedy? We will discuss all this in today’s article, I hope that it will turn out to be interesting.

So, all my regular readers know that I often repeat the meaning of the word “economy”. Saving is frugality. That is, to be economical means to be thrifty, this is 100% good, and there is nothing wrong with it, despite all sorts of stereotypes.

But they asked me a question: “Where is the line between saving and greed (stinginess)? After all, stinginess is excessive frugality!” The question is really interesting.

Look: there is economy, the synonym is frugality, and this is a positive quality. And there is an excessive form of frugality - stinginess, a synonym - greed, and this is a negative quality. How to save money without being greedy? Where is this line of excess, and how not to cross it? So, I decided to write an article that will provide answers to all these questions.

Let’s look into the dictionary again and see what it says about greed. In the meaning that is important to us, greed is stinginess, self-interest. And stinginess is excessive frugality, a dislike of spending, spending money. So let's look for differences.

Difference 1. Dislike of spending. This difference follows from the definition. It is psychologically difficult for a greedy person to bear any expenses. Important: any! Including even really necessary ones. Every time he painfully parts with money. For him, any spending is a little stress, large spending is a big stress.

A frugal person does not experience any negative emotions about spending. He spends money easily and naturally, without worrying about it at all. However, he does not “throw away” money, he spends only on what he really needs, and does not overpay.

Difference 2. Prohibition of spending VS accounting and planning. Greed presupposes every possible avoidance of any spending, because for a stingy person, as I already wrote, it brings psychological discomfort. That is, a stingy person will deny himself everything just to avoid spending.

Saving is not refusal and avoidance, it is reasonable planning and accounting for all expenses. A thrifty person will not refuse to pay for the goods and services he needs; he will purchase them on time, in a planned manner and at the best price. He always knows for which cost items how much money he will need, and plans these expenses.

Difference 3: The miser pays twice. Do you know this saying? It clearly did not arise out of nowhere. Thanks to greed, a person buys excessively cheap goods and services; the main factor of choice for him is always price, the rest is secondary. As a result, these goods and services, due to their price, turn out to be of poor quality. Therefore, in the future he has to buy them again, overpaying in total, which naturally greatly upsets a stingy person.

A thrifty person competently compares prices and therefore chooses a product of optimal quality at the optimal price. And in the future he does not have to “pay twice” when making a repeat purchase.

Difference 4. Greed = loneliness and monotony. Since a greedy person tries to avoid any expenses, his life is boring and monotonous. A stingy person does not have a hobby, because it necessarily requires some expenses, he has no friends, because joint events also always require some money, and he does not even have a loved one, because he also requires financial expenses (especially this applies to men). A greedy person lives a monotonous life, he can even sit at home and rarely go out, so that, God forbid, he does not spend something.

A frugal person lives the same life as everyone else, he has hobbies, friends, family. But at the same time, his financial condition is always better in comparison with those around him who have similar incomes, because he saves wisely.

Difference 5. Collection and storage of unnecessary things. Like the famous literary character Plyushkin, a stingy person collects and stores a lot of unnecessary or old things, in case “maybe it will come in handy.” His home always looks like a warehouse of all kinds of junk, most of which he keeps for storage and will never use it in his life. Greedy people take home everything that is “bad”, regardless of whether they need it or not, the main criterion is that it was free or very cheap.

A thrifty person will not buy something that he does not need just because it is cheap, because he knows: the first golden rule of saving is not to buy unnecessary things. That's exactly what it's about. He uses purchased goods carefully, does not throw them away prematurely, but without fanaticism.

Difference 6: Risk appetite. A greedy person almost always keeps his money “under his pillow.” Because he doesn't trust anyone and is terribly afraid of losing them. As a last resort, he can keep his savings in bank deposits, because “it’s safe there.” But there are exceptions: stingy people who are not distinguished by high intelligence and financial literacy can, out of greed, in pursuit of high income (after all, money is everything for them!), invest their savings in some kind of financial pyramids or HYIPs, and lose them there. Here the continuation of the saying comes into force: “A stingy person pays twice, a stupid person pays three times, and a sucker pays all his life.”

A thrifty person knows that money must not only be saved, but also preserved, and even better, increased. Therefore, he puts aside his savings in various instruments, adequately assessing the degree of risk.

Difference 7. Impact of force majeure. Any force majeure situation that requires sudden expenses is a shock for a greedy person, which he experiences extremely painfully.

A thrifty person has a reserve fund, the direct purpose of which is to pay for such expenses. Therefore, he can easily use it for its intended purpose, after which he gradually replenishes it to the required volume.

Difference 8. Purposes of accumulation. This is perhaps the most important difference between saving and stinginess. For a greedy person, money is an end in itself; he accumulates it all his life, just to have it, and in the end he dies “with his money.”

For a frugal person, accumulating money freed up through saving is the path to achieving your financial goals. Thanks to saving, he makes large expenses, creates sources of passive income, that is, becomes richer and strengthens his financial condition.

General conclusion: greed (stinginess) is a fanatically unhealthy, negative quality; it is a serious psychological problem that needs to be gotten rid of. And saving is a useful and necessary positive quality that you need to develop in yourself.

These are the differences between saving and greed that I see. And you? I will be glad to hear your opinion in the comments.

Be frugal, but don't be stingy! See you again on Financial Genius!

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