A couple of weeks ago, as I dug through the Sunday paper for the coupon inserts(why else does anybody even buy a newspaper anymore, right?lol), I happened to grab a Sales Flyer for a national chain store, that will remain nameless, by the name of Target.
I'm smooth, aren't I? ;-)
Anyway, I paged through the flyer, as I leisurely sipped my morning beverage, until I got to this page.
I chuckled......
Do you see what it says there, in lime green, right in the center of the page?
I chuckled but then I got mad.
It seems retailers are taking the basic fundamentals of the Frugality Movement and are twisting it to fit their Consumerist Culture.
Or another way of putting it is....retailers are using Frugality to Sell more Stuff by equating FRUGAL with CHEAP....which it is NOT!
Big diff...
If you look up the definition of frugal you'll find something like this explanation from Merriam Webster Online...
"characterized by or reflecting economy in the use of resources".
Furnishings your home with inexpensive NEW furniture is NOT frugal. While buying a cheap piece of new furniture is initially using your monetary resources economically(not spending much money), in the long run it isn't frugal.
Spending money on new, poorly built furniture that used up natural resources in the making of this badly constructed stuff & used up your personal monetary resources that could have been saved and used more wisely to buy quality built items or items you can find used or free is cheap.
Buying new cheap furniture is not good for your bottom line since it will not last and will break sooner and need to be replaced, thus you will end up spending twice as much on the cheap furniture you buy.
It isn't frugal for YOUR wallet, nor is it frugal for the planet!
Furnishing your home with USED New-To-You furniture, IS frugal. Even more frugal would be to look around your home at what you already own and see if "repurposing" some other item you already own or asking friends or family if they have something for FREE that they no longer need/want will work before you start looking to barter or buy used.
By not requiring more natural resources on this planet to be consumed by having them turned into a poorly made piece of furniture you have economized or saved those resources. You have also saved your monetary resources because you won't have to buy more furniture to replace the new inexpensive ones as they fall apart....and as an added bonus, since you didn't buy a new thing from the store, they don't have to order another one just like it to replace it, saving even more natural resources.
So, which would you rather do?
A--Spend $20 on a new press board chest of drawers(made in Bangladesh or some other 3rd world country no doubt)and have it fall apart within 2 years, necessitating that you have to buy yet another new press board chest, that has now gone up to $22.50 in price....rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat through the years?
OR
B--Spend $25 at a garage sale/thrift store/craigslist/etc. for a used piece of quality-made, real wood with mitered corners and dovetailed this & thats, etc. chest of drawers that may or may not have blemishes/need refinishing/painting/cleaning, that has been in use for 20 years or more and will last for many years to come?
Remember this....you get what you pay for. Cheaply made products don't last and by needing to be replaced frequently they suck even more money out of your wallet.
Why feed your precious, hard earned dollars to the Corporate Machine when you have a choice?
In this same vein, I found this interesting article HERE. Seems as people try to conserve their income, they have made many Dollar Stores boom. This phenomenon hasn't gone unnoticed by retailers, as they have begun to court these 'low-end consumers' more vigorously by adding 'low-end' merchandise.
Walmart has even lost business to the Dollar Stores and is taking steps to reclaim that lost revenue. I found some of the comments left after this article thought provoking as well.
Go ahead and discuss amongst yourselves.....
Be looking for much much more of this kind of marketing geared toward the frugal set to show up in the print and electronic media near you!
Just because they call something Frugal doesn't make it so.
As always, when it comes to business trying to separate you from your money it's Caveat Emptor.
Sluggy
Reminds me of when my otherwise quite intelligent sister said that she and her husband "aren't frugal, we're just careful and sensible with our money". That one left me scratching my head.
ReplyDeleteI like dollar stores for some things: coloring books for Kat, disposables when I just really need them (school parties, etc), generic medications, and a few other things. But I find that on most things I can get better quality at the same price or less by shopping Aldi or watching for sales elsewhere.
Oh dear. My MIL is definitely in the category that if she's going to be frugal, she has to buy a bunch of cheap cheap stuff and bring it home... *shaking my head*
ReplyDeleteShe'll use the "but it was only...$" line like that should make me hug it with frugality.
gaaaaahahhh!
"that will remain nameless, by the name of Target."-I love when you are subtle!
ReplyDeleteThis post gets an A+
I totally agree: There's frugal then there's cheap and they are not the same thing - I tend twoards frugal for us and cheap for DS. ;) Your title mentions cardboard dressers and we actually bought our son a few of those when he first moved into his own apartment his sophomore year of college. My reasoning was that this (absolutely wonderful, talented, creative, smart) young man has destroyed everything we've ever bought him - good quality, poor quality, cheap, expensive, makes no difference. It's all abused back into the molecules from whence it came. So I went for uber cheap with the knowledge that no matter what I spent, it would be scrap by the end of his college days. And to my surprise, one of those cardboard dressers actually made it home this summer! For us, though, we tend toward better quality (read: sturdy) yard sale furniture. In fact my favorite table was a $5 coffee table find from a yard sale eons ago that should still be around when I no longer am, it's such a good sturdy piece.
ReplyDeleteSluggy I SOOOO agree. I'll buy something if I can get A LOT of use out of it... not the case if it falls apart. It's why I won't by a cheap brand at a thrift store too.
ReplyDeleteWe love Dollar General and have shopped there for years. We shop some of the other ones on ocassion, but DG we shop regularly. Ours is nice and clean, well maintained and the employees are all great. We find great bargains there on things we use all the time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you wholeheartedly. Cheap is not always frugal! If something falls apart a few days after you buy it or use it, how frugal was that???????
ReplyDeleteWe have this conversation lots in our house. Cheaper isn't better--you usually get what you pay for. Why buy cheap more than once when you can buy better quality for a bit more and have it last much longer.
ReplyDeleteI didn't comment on the RV thread--but in one way you are lucky--my next door neighbor put up a 3 door--read HUGE---metal garage and a carport for her RV and blocked much of our view. We look out our back windows and see burgundy and white metal instead of the wooded area we had before. I know how you feel.
When I had been married for a year and still had no sofa, but had bought a house, we went out and bought the most we could afford in a sofa--$100. Now, this was in 1967. The frame is still sturdy, despite being 43-years-old. The springs are shot in one place and the cushions are deteriorating. A lovely piece of heavy, velvet upholstery material makes a throw and hides deficiencies. If Mediterranean style furniture comes back. I have a winner here! I doubt a cheap sofa today would have a frame that could last 33 years.
ReplyDeleteThat was the last cheap, major purchase I bought. I hate to replace anything, even toilet paper. That is why I use cloth instead!
Great post.