Are you frugal -- or stingy?

By Liz Pulliam Weston

One of my friends grew up poor. She's not any longer, but she still finds herself reflexively saying no when her kids ask her to buy them something. Is she being financially prudent, she wonders, or just stingy?

Another friend is involved with a man who often cooks her dinner at his house. Does he really love to cook that much, she asks, or is he just trying to avoid spending money in restaurants?

You've been invited to a dear friend's wedding, but you're struggling to pay off credit card debt. Does economizing on a wedding present make you frugal or a miser?

All of us have to make choices about how we spend our money. Wise choices allow us to build our wealth and, eventually, achieve financial independence. But how do you decide when you're being frugal and when you've crossed the line into stinginess?

You might be stingy if …

When I posed this question to the folks on the Your Money message board, some responded that "stinginess" or "frugality" were in the eye of the beholder. As one poster put it, "I find that stingy is what other people call a frugal person, especially when it inhibits a group plan or describes an action contrary to what someone else would do."

Maybe. But I and others believe stinginess can be objectively identified. And here are some benchmarks:

• If you use 2-for-1 coupons at a restaurant, you might be frugal. If you base your server's tip on the discounted bill, you're probably stingy.

• If you decide in advance how much to spend each year on charitable contributions, and then try to stay within that budget, you might be frugal. If the last thing you gave to charity was an ancient can of lima beans you wouldn't eat yourself, you're probably stingy.

• If you use a tea bag for more than one cup of tea, you might be frugal. If you offer a guest the cup made from the used bag, you're probably stingy.

Frugality can be, and often is, a virtue. It implies you're being careful, not wasteful, with your resources.

Stinginess is a vice, and it carries a whiff of meanness. The word "implies a marked lack of generosity," as Webster's tells us. Stinginess is about pulling back when the more human impulse is to give.

Message board poster LolaStressed1 offered the board a classic example from her childhood.

"We'd be over at (a notoriously stingy neighbor's) house playing and they'd offer popsicles. . . . Their kids would get a whole one each and us neighbor kids would get one cut into sometimes four pieces to split among us. Every time I see my old childhood playmates we laugh about that. To me, frugal would have been giving everyone the same amount (even if it was just a quarter of an Icee Pop)."

Stinginess, to LolaStressed1, "is always keeping the best for yourself and giving everyone else the scraps."

Hallmarks of stinginess

Several posters noted that the choices stingy folks make often prove costly to others. And when I asked author and self-proclaimed cheapskate Mary Hunt for her definitions of frugality versus stinginess, that's a point she made right away.

"Frugality is the activity required for me to live below my means," said Hunt, whose latest book is "Live Your Life for Half the Price." "Stinginess is the activity of requiring others to participate in my frugality."

She cited some examples:

"A stingy person wouldn't be caught dead leaving a decent tip, always splits meals, tries to return stuff after having worn it . . . never gives a dime to the church or synagogue, doesn't honor the kids' teachers with a thank-you gift, does everything possible to keep as much money as possible -- at the expense of others!"

By contrast, Hunt's definition of frugality well-lived includes the concept of generosity.

Continued: 'Giving is the antidote for greed'

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