Before I rant about this subject in detail, let me tell you a quick story about my former roommate. Let me refer to this character as Mr. RI (for reckless idiot). This was back when I was single, and sharing an apartment with other students. Mr. RI, like most other students was living on the edge, barely managing his living expenses and tuition. One fine day, RI announces to the rest of his roommates that his is inviting his colleagues from his workplace for a party. He invited not 2 or 3, but his entire workplace…that’s like 26 people! Now, you all know how student apartments are 
..not very presentable and lacking resources for accommodating so many guests. So, Mr. RI goes to Walmart, picks up about 30 chairs, and a whole lot of home decor stuff for a total bill of about $300 !!. We are surprised, and ask him about how he is going to afford all this and he casually shrugs off our concern by saying this…” I am frugal to the fullest extent. It’s not like I am buying it. I will return everything back to Walmart tomorrow”.
According to my meagre knowledge on the subject of ethical behavior, what Mr. RI did amounted to cheating, not frugality. Over the years, I have seen many other people do this with various retail stores; and unless I was missing something, none of them was a “rent for free” store. So what’s happening here? are people loosing a sense of what’s ethical and what’s not? Or, are they confusing frugality with cheating?
In addition to the above example of Mr. RI, here are a few more things that I have seen/heard some people do for cost cutting purposes (a.k.a frugality).
- Deliberately “breaking” a laptop to get a new one: This crazy idea floated around our campus a few years ago, and fortunately did not gather much steam. Students bought used laptops that were still under full warranty (there are a few specific brands that give transferable warranty on laptops, but I won’t mention them here); messed with it and returned it to the manufacturer to get a new piece. I forget the specifics of the entire procedure, but I know at least one person who got a new laptop through this way.
- Returning cell phones drowned in coffee/water: Yeah, I don’t understand how you can drop a cell phone in a cup of coffee in the first place, but even this has been done. People then use hair dryers and conventional ovens to dry up those things and try to return them to the manufacturer. If you don’t believe me, read this thread.
- Switching bar-codes to make your expensive purchases appear cheaper: I know at least one person in real life who has done this. People have even gone as far as making fake bar-codes for buying things cheap. Read this and this for example.
- There are many more examples, but I won’t mention all of them just to keep this post short. If you know some more, please feel free to share them through your comments.
I do acknowledge that the yardstick for measuring “ethical” is different for different individuals. What’s ethical for one person might be a sacrilege to the other. But, in the above examples, the idiots who did those things were not confused about whether their actions are ethical or not…they knew it was unethical..and yet they did it under the pretext of frugality.
Common excuse people give for such unethical behavior is “being ethical won’t save you a dime”. That’s totally crap. I think the real reason behind it is that people fall for the easiest solution to get out of their self-created mess, and in most cases…cheating is easier than admitting a problem and working on it for a genuine solution.
In my opinion, frugality doesn’t have to (and should not) conflict with ethics. Frugality is not about how to efficiently cheat people/organizations; it’s not about putting your family through a lot of pain and suffering to save a few bucks; …and yeah ..it’s not about eating less to save money. Frugality, as I understand it, is to make wise choices when it comes to your expenses; it is the art of efficiently using your resources; it is the art of making the best of your life by staying within the limits of what you can afford.
Frugality is for frugals, leave the cheating to the idiots.
If you are interested, click here, here, and here for more articles about ethics and frugality.
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It also sounds alot like KUWJ but masking it as frugality. Trying to impress people by claiming that you are something that you are not can also lead to crossing the line between ethical behavior and cheating.
I guess if they can look at themselves in the mirror each morning, they can justify just about anything.
Yikes! That’s not frugality, that’s bare-faced stealing. Gives frugal people a bad name. Refusing to buy more than you need is one thing; getting someone else stuck with the bill is entirely another. Aah! *tosses up hands in frustration*
I agree; this is sheer cheating.Their definition of frugality is totally messed up. Having ethics in any aspect of life is the essence of being a human.how does their conscience permit this?
Definitely cheating. What makes people think this is right? They are probably mirroring what they grew up with. Maybe not in all cases, but I would bet in most.
So in their mind, they are not doing anything wrong. But in my mind it is STEALING.
Maria: Sorry, if I sound like a moron, but what does KUWJ stand for? I googled it but only came up with “Kerala Union of Working Journalists”
Ellen, I understand the frustration…I have tossed my hands too a couple of times.
The Chef: thanks for picking up on the topic and writing about it on your blog.
Missy: Money makes people do strange things…this is one of them
Nicely written. I can cite tens if not hundreds of examples of such Mr and Ms RI from my one year stay in US. In India, the return policies are stringent (usually they don’t return your money, but store credit) and hence you don’t see it much often. But here, folks use their stuff, like humidifier in the whole winter and return it to Walmart just before 90 days expiry.
One intelligent dude posted an ad in our bulletin board for few items including a Panasonic Camcorder he had purchased two days ago during Thanksgiving sale. He had purchased it for $499 (with $75 mail-in rebate) each. He was selling each for $599 (approx retail price). Interestingly, he had cut the barcode from the boxes and had intended to fill out the rebate forms himself.
To the level people will fall to make some money.
haha, don’t they call it something like “penny wise, pound foolish”? some of the entries are more like the stupidity of people.
nku: the intelligent dude story that you give is fairly common. I don’t involve myself in those things, but some personal finance bloggers might give you a hard time on that one.
Jersey jen: yep points more towards stupidity.
concern is that it gives frugality a bad name.
KUWJ is “Keeping Up With the Joneses”
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