It goes way beyond frugality - it is usually accompanied by a touch of hoarding (bought a new phone? Let's keep the old one even if it has a cracked screen, just in case... <throws phone into drawer full of hopelessly unusable and outdated electronic doodads>.)

A term I've seen bandied about for the collective symptoms is having a Scarcity mindset and it's based on insecurity/fear of unexpectedly running out of money (which was a frequent event in childhood)

John Scalzi's classic "Being Poor" blog post[1] details the effects of poverty in detail.

1. https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

With electronics specifically, it's often just more convenient to toss the old device in a drawer. You're not supposed to put them in the trash, and e-waste disposal often incurs a fee. This is why refrigerators end up dumped on the side of a road in a ravine, because municipalities make it harder to dispose of them responsibly than to just dump them.

>(bought a new phone? Let's keep the old one even if it has a cracked screen, just in case... <throws phone into drawer full of hopelessly unusable and outdated electronic doodads>.)

Never been poor; me and my whole family have always done this. I just forced them to get rid of their standalone DVD player. They have remote controls for devices going back to the 90's.

The cellphone example is even better; you'd be a fool to immediately dump your old phone. It's small and easy to store, and if your new phone craps out or gets lost or stolen you may very well have a use for another phone that works right now. I have phones going back 2 generations.

This is just frugality and contingency planning.

Scarcity mindset is more like, "I have $300, I need to spend it before it goes away". That's what keeps people poor.

A -> B =/= B -> A

You don't have to be/(have been) poor to be a hoarder. On the old cellphone, my emphasis was a drawer full of backup-to-a-backup-to-a-backup devices that are now 10 years old and is running Android 2 and are potentially a fire hazard while charging and are not fit for use - they are emotional support devices. Keeping one generation of backup device is rational, 3+ means there's something to unpack.

I'm curious about how your family tradition came to be: a high number of people who experienced the great depressions in their formative years are/were compulsive hoarders in latter years.

Being poor is what keeps poor people poor; costs of necessities go down the richer you get; being poor is expensive

Different view: sell your old phone soon so you can get better second hand price.

> Never been poor

So what basis do you have for commenting on the experience of it?

> me and my whole family have always done this.

I'm sure there are other things that both your family and poor families have done, but that doesn't have explanatory value.

I'm not commenting on the experience of being poor; I'm saying that the mentioned behavior isn't "part of being poor", it's part of being frugal.

There’s a fine line between frugality and being stuck in a local optima. Sometimes, expensive things are better in the long run, because they serve their purpose better and last longer.

First order frugality: buy cheaper things or go without. Hoard all your trash in case you need it again.

Second order frugality: Buy it for life. Quality over quantity.

Third order frugality: This inert matter is not nearly as interesting as the people who wish to sell it to us want us to believe.

Well said

My approach is to always buy the first "stuff" cheap and then try to use it the best possible way. If it breaks or I see the limits with the "stuff", then I go for the good and expensive one. This way I know I need it but I can also better assess the quality.

This of course after having spent too much on high quality "stuff" with little use.

The only problem with this approach is the amount of time before your interest in a new thing starts to fade is often just about the same amount of time it takes to recognize the limits of the cheap stuff and decide to upgrade.

It's definitely happened to me multiple times. And I don't think it's just a coincidence, with any new hobby or skill you will start out improving very quickly and then eventually hit a plateau. The first thing you think when you hit the plateau is "I would be a little bit better/have a little bit more fun with this if I had better gear", and it's usually true and you do get a slight boost. But then a little while after that you hit a sustained plateau anyway and that's the point where you'll often lose interest.

This is what I do with tools. If it's obviously something I will use again and again, I'll pay for quality. If it's something I might need just once, but not certain, I'll buy a cheap one to get the immediate job done. If I need it again and it breaks, I've now needed it twice so I'll replace it with a good one. (If it doesn't break, it's a better value than I thought).

optimum*

I think you are both correct. It is true that people who grow up poor simply have much fewer chances to learn how to grow wealth. They may be frugal and manage the little they have with care, but that kind of mindset is not enough in general. They don't get any chance to learn how to invest money properly, because they don't have any to invest. If they do put something aside, they are encouraged (by the circumstances) to keep it as safe as possible (ie cash), which is generally a bad investment decision.

You are also right in that there are plenty of people who are high earners, but never get to actually build wealth because they spend it all. This can often be the curse of living in a high cost of living area. You see all the wealthy people driving in nice cars and living in luxury homes, and this makes it difficult to consciously deny yourself these things and live (relatively) modestly but build long term wealth instead.

That overlooks the basic point, that poverty causes trauma. Budgeting is just one symptom. It causes negative life-long outcomes; there's plenty of research on this.

It’s not just frugality. Being “penny wise and pound foolish” and being risk averse is a huge drag on one’s financial opportunities.

> You could also say being poor in childhood teaches you how to be frugal.

You could say anything, but what's true is that it's not frugality. Where do you get that?

It's a traumatic experience with lifelong consequences. I know that from many people who have experienced it.

Is it possibly both? ;). I mean, a good education in frugality at the same time as being traumatic? And as an adult you have both strengths and weaknesses as result of this? You have excellent frugal habits that help you live happily on less, but also may be risk averse to the detriment of your career, and lacking in confidence at times. That's certainly my wife's experience.

One of the other aspects of being poor is the assumption that any windfall you get will be nickeled and dimed away from you pretty soon, so the only way you'll ever be able to enjoy it is to spend it all immediately.

That turns out to be the opposite of frugality.

Poor people who manage to accumulate some savings also face intense social pressure to give or "loan" that money to family and friends who are in more desperate circumstances (or at least claim to be). It's nice to help people out, but being too generous makes it impossible to ever get ahead.

You can very easily teach yourself to be frugal now as well - it just requires taking the time out of your day to do so. Of course there are potential confounding factors but there are plenty of super rich people I know who are annoyingly frugal.

This is fixable without suffering. Read a few books on the subject, and develop an appreciation of why money is important. Suffering is the last and blunt resort.