Chris's Dad's Potential Flaw

    I was thinking about my last post and some of your comments after I ruined a batch of homemade tomato sauce last night.
    I was mad that I just wasted the tomatoes, a can of tomatoe paste, an onion and a package of basil that I could have used for something else. All told, it was probably $6 worth of ingredients. But I was on the verge of ordering something in because I couldn't eat the sauce. That meal would have undoubtedly cost over $10.
   That's when this cliche hit me and I thought it was important to make a point that I'm sure that everyone already knows:

    It's important not to be pennywise and pound foolish.

    I think I'm quite pennywise and terribly pound foolish, which may be the main reason that I got so deep into debt and am taking my sweet time getting out.

    For those unfamiliar with the cliche, it simply means that you're cautious with small amounts of money, but careless with larger amounts. For example, I buy generic at the grocery store and pick up stray dimes and pennies to store in a bank that I periodically deposit in my savings account... but I'll also eat out more than I can afford or drop $100 on a single item of clothing.

    Or I'll pay for the cheaper cell phone plan with limited text messages, than go over the limit for 200 and have to pay $20 or whatever when I could have paid less than with a more substantial plan.

     See what I mean?

    I'm not that stupid all the time (and I fixed the cell phone thing) but it happens often enough and would negate anything I gained by pinched pennies.

    Consumerism Commentary had a post about this last year with a list of pennywise, pound foolish things people often do. Read it here.

    So tell me, are you ever PW & PF like me? I hope not, but if you are, I'd love to hear about it!

    DH

Comments

[Les Becker]

I'm financially weird in that when I have very little money, I go blow it on the first thing I see, and when I'm "flush", I turn miserly. I'm out of debt now, and putting my "old" debt payments into investment accounts. This summer, ING has an "interest sale" on, and I'm putting as much as I can in - to the point that I can barely stretch what's left over to get me to the next paycheck. How stupid is that?!

[Sistah Ant]

Couple weeks ago, I used my SmartCard parking meter card (a substitute for quarters that works on a declining balance) to feed the meter for an hour, because I figured I'd pay by the hour to keep from paying too much. An hour passed. I forgot to go outside. The meter reader beat me to the car by seven minutes. A thirty-five dollar ticket for time that woulda cost me an additional quarter from my SmartCard.

Penny wise. Pound Foolish.

[Liz]

I don't mind spending as many $15 as I want. But when it comes to the $100 item, I'll never buy it. Even though by that time the $15 items more than made up for it...