Cheap and frugal are two different things?

[Flowersareawsome22]

According to some of my friends Im cheap and I've been told so many times that I act like an old lady and laughing making fun of me. Anyway my friend and I we were talking about grocery shopping and I mentioned that you must always take your coupons, groceries list and used your phone calculator or you can just bring your basic calculator so that notification from your phone don't get you distracted. I always plan ahead what meals I will be cooking by next week. I explained to my friend that cooking at home saves you money and how going out to restaurants is a waste of money. My friend looked at me as if I had three eyes laugh said that I am such a cheapskate that only old people do that and how I am an old lady. My cousin told me being cheap is using the same paper napkins the whole year. Being frugal is using your coupons and buying only the ingredients that you will be using for meal prepping or for next weeks dinner. Do you think cheap and frugal are two different things?

[CupcakeTheDestroyer]

Cheap and frugal are indeed two separate things.
“Frugal” is often used to describe someone who actively makes the better financial choices for themselves/their families that keeps everyone involved happy while also saving the money they want to pad away for the future.
“Cheap” is much the same, however it’s often done in a way that hurts their relationships, it’s an intense need for financial control and choosing the worse option if it means spending less money. This is also used to describe someone who might partake in some less-than-savory practices (ie letting the yellow mellow to save on water) that most people choose not to do for hygiene reasons.


I can see you have some serious financial anxiety and the lack of money available to you is something consistently near the front of your mind, it doesn’t help that you’re pushing your choices onto the lives of those around you as if to assert that your way is better than their way, showing you don’t respect their choices. Have you considered talking to a third party about that?

[jamesgoldman]

Absolutely, cheap is terrible
Frugality the the cornerstone of long-term wealth

[DrPepper12]

GREAT ANSWER

[DrPepper12]

Yes. Just like spinthrift & miserly. All words have different connotations

[bowenw]

They are two different things, exactly how you describe.

[LiamS95]

They're modt deginetly entirely different.