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
