the.com/cheapness
The art of spending an hour to save a dollar, then bragging about the dollar.
means The quality of costing little, or of someone's reluctance to spend even when they can afford to.
from From 'cheap,' which started life as the Old English noun 'cēap,' meaning a bargain, trade, or market (survived in place names like Cheapside, literally 'market side'). The verb 'to cheapen' originally meant to haggle or bargain for something, not to lower its worth. Only later did the adjective 'cheap' drift from 'good price' to 'low price' to, eventually, 'stingy' — the word quietly souring from describing a deal to describing a person.
- not frugality
- frugality optimizes value, cheapness optimizes price alone
- hidden cost
- cheap tools break fastest, forcing a second purchase
- social tax
- often paid by whoever splits the bill with you
- evolutionary logic
- scarcity mindset outlives the scarcity that caused it