Woman Blogger Opines About Frugality

Recently I read this article, and it interested me enough to ponder it, and consider writing a post about it. Not necessarily a rebuttal, because I agreed with a lot of what was said, but I felt it raised some interesting points which required answering. [For more discussion, see QOC's take on it here.] But the more I thought over it, the more annoyed I got at the tone, which caused the mental composition of this post to degenerate rather quickly such that by the time I got to typing it up in Word it became a full-fledged rant.

In the first place. (Deep breath.) Why on earth appears in the first paragraph the unnecessary and completely irrelevant clause: 'and women in particular'? What's wrong with blogging about frugality? Nothing, perhaps. But why on earth should it matter whether women or men are blogging about it? If the author of the article means to go on to suggest that most people so blogging are missing the boat on this topic (which he seems to imply), does it matter whether more frugal bloggers are women than men? Are women bloggers missing the boat more egregiously on this topic than men bloggers? Is that why we have to throw that distinction in there? Are women, from centuries of not balancing the checkbook, peculiarly ignorant in all matters financial and are therefore ripe for enlightenment ('Duh! The way I can save more money is not by using coupons but by not buying it at all? Boy, did I have it wrong! Thanks, Male Blogger, for cluing me in!') Or are women just so patently ignorant on all topics in general that it naturally follows that if women in particular are blogging about it, they are missing the boat and need this fine fellow to write an article to set them straight? I mean, that clause was kind of thrown in there at the beginning as if it were an explanation for the need to write this article: this article was in response to the proliferation of frugal bloggers out there, and as if that weren't bad enough, many of those bloggers are women. This is reminiscent of R.C. Sproul objecting to women posting advice or spiritual encouragement on their blogs, because men might read it, and that would violate the Scriptural imperative that women must not teach men.

Moving on...

I agree that frugality is a matter of the heart. But both extremes - spending and saving - are equally wrong: spending too much money evinces a love of stuff, while hoarding money evinces a love of money. Both involve making idols out of something.

Under the heading of Necessity, this author states that 'Many people who attempt to be frugal could probably get along just fine without being frugal.' He proffers the example of spending days finding the perfect cheap cake pan in order to invite people over to evangelize them, and suggests that it might be worthwhile to just spend the money on the cake and have people over all the sooner. This seems like a straw man argument to me. Where do any of you read a blog advocating, as one of their frugal tips, 'Spend days scouring thrift shops looking for cake pans'? I mean, hello! Most frugal people probably already bake their own cakes, using pots and pans they got as wedding or graduation presents! I can't imagine a frugal Christian blogger advocating ignoring the prompting of the Holy Spirit in order to save a few bucks. If you really don't have the money, then you will invite people over for coffee or tea and skip the cake.

But what if you do have the money? This is where the author should stop writing his opinions about how things should be done and simply reference Exhibit A, Check Your Heart. And that's about as far as you can go in giving people advice and telling them what the holy thing to do is. You can share what works for you, you can explain how to you it is worth it to buy a cake, in the whole money v. time continuum, but you should not opine about what the better or holier course to pursue is.

I personally could afford to spring $20 for a Publix cake (ouch!), in terms of actually having the money in my bank account, but I don't think it would be a wise allocation of funds. Let's remember that all this hypothetical money and stuff and time belong to God already. 'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein.' I am a steward of God's resources, both the money and the time, and I will answer to Him for how I allocate those resources. Acknowledging that is the key.

Moving on...

We have next a rather laughable application of the Old Testament gleaning principle to the notion of bargains. For one thing, the author assumes that 'of course the wealthy landowners would have wanted to pick these up and increase their profits,' but I say of course not necessarily. As a former farmer and agrarian, I know that there is a certain unavoidable margin of waste, and when you're working a field or a garden or whatever it is, you just write a bit off. Nowadays machinery has made that margin far smaller than it used to be, but when you have crops to get in and another field to harvest, you're not going to waste your time mucking about with the odds and ends. You have bigger fish to fry. If you're a generous soul, you'd be delighted to know that the stray wheat stalks aren't going completely to waste.

The notion that shopping at second-hand stores (or accepting hand-me-downs from friends, or whatever) deprives the genuine poor people of their source of clothing is ludicrous. Our society is so rich, so overflowing with bounty, that there's more than enough to go around. It's just as well that us rich people (as he seems to define anyone with the means) are willing to participate in the salvage operations, or even more decent stuff would go into the landfills than already does. (Have you seen what some snobs throw away??) By dressing my children in second-hand clothes, I am no more causing some poor child to go naked than I am starving some poor child in Africa by throwing out the leftover oatmeal (which, for the record, I don't actually do either).

There is a lot of stockpile-bashing and entrepreneurship-sneering going on in the comment thread, but since the author of the article wasn't responsible for that, I'll leave that be. Except to say that by what stretch of the imagination is it greedy, nasty, selfish, and cruel to the poor for me to snap up multiples of an item at a good price if it is something I will use for my family, give away to someone, or even sell? It is a matter of the heart, and I am pretty pipped that anyone would judge another for his motives in acquiring something. Joseph stockpiled grain for seven years, which was an incredibly wise decision that had the blessing of God on it and saved the whole known world. The rich fool stockpiled so much grain that he intended to tear down his barns and build bigger barns, but God saw his heart of greed and took it all from him. Let's not pretend that we can read minds and hearts.

Random economic observations:

'Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?' ~Vineyard owner, Matthew 20:15

'No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions - he had money, too.' ~Margaret Thatcher