The cheapskate and his inner prison

We all know them, even if they try to go unnoticed. They are those people who never carry cash with them, go to the bathroom when paying a collective bill or are capable of going to unlikely places to get a discount. The cheapskate is not easy to recognize. In fact, many do not consider that being excessively thrifty entails any kind of problem.

In psychology, there is a lot of talk about pathologies of excess: overeating, overdrinking, overspending… But default pathologies sometimes appear camouflaged: he who eats less is dieting, he who does not play is someone serious and He who spends little is thrifty.

However, it is clear that “too much” is not a good adjective at all. There is a pathological form of savings that is not only reduced to money or material goods, but also expresses deeper aspects of the personality.

Characteristics of a cheapskate

The stingy, or pathological saver, is recognized because he avoids making expenses that he could perfectly afford, without causing any problems. They generally have solid income and a stable position. If you ask them, they tell you that their condition is precisely good because they have made an effort to save and not spend on nonsense.

They are the type of people who wear the same clothes for years to avoid spending. They don’t use the phone, they turn off all the lights and buy the cheapest products in the supermarket, even if they are of low quality.

It takes an extreme situation for them to be able to make an invitation to dinner. If they give something as a gift, they buy it cheaply. And sometimes they are able to save what they are given to give it later and thus avoid the expense.

The distinctive thing about the pathological saver is the fact that his scruples about spending do not arise from an objective reason.. It’s not that I don’t have money, or that I’m making an investment, or that I have plans to invest in the future.

Your thing is to save money for the sake of saving it. Or to make plans that are never executed. Or to face possible “bad times”, although no time is so bad that they are convinced that they have to spend.

Material stingy, emotional stingy

The most serious thing is that who is stingy is not only stingy with money. He is also stingy with his emotions, his affections and your own display of vital energy.

Just as he does not spend on objects, he is not generous in what he feels towards others, nor in what he invests to make them happy. The stingy keeps everything he can for himself and, to that extent, is not a prudent person, but rather someone trapped in an internal prison.

Stinginess: a character structure

It is very difficult to live together or establish a deep and lasting bond with a stingy person. Just as they feel they must protect their “savings” from the siren song of the market, they also believe they can be emotionally “coaxed” by others.

There are cases that are hard to believe. Like Laura, who had a “tied” boyfriend, who always made her invitations to places where they didn’t have to pay a peso. If it had to be done, she was always the one who ended up taking out the wallet. Once, her boyfriend surprised her paying the bill at the nightclub. But the next day he arrived at her house with the bill in hand to make the corresponding payment.

A view of stinginess from psychoanalysis

The cheapskate is actually terrified and organizes his life based on a fantasy of control. For psychoanalysis, the issue is related to a difficulty in overcoming the anal phase.

When the child perceives the sphincter control phase as traumatic or excessively severe, he or she usually develops an obsession with withholding, with avoiding giving. This translates into both stinginess and egocentrism in adult life. The cheapskate He is also someone who in one way or another ends up using others for his own interests. .

That’s why it doesn’t matter if someone else has to put their hand in their pocket to pay a common bill, even if they know that that person earns less than them. He also doesn’t care if his behavior hurts himself.

There are stingy people who die of cold in order not to spend on heating. Others, like Leonardo Di Caprio, become “ecologists” to avoid spending. How is this? Di Caprio does not use his plane to “not pollute” the environment. But he has no qualms about using other people’s private planes, as his friend Mark Wahlberg has said.

Being stingy is being locked in the prison of fear

The cheapskate is trapped in his own fears. He may be someone with depression and catastrophe fantasies.. You may also have an exploitative personality. They generally end their lives alone and with a large fortune saved that ends up in the hands of anyone.

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Images courtesy of John Holcroft