Somehow, this doesn't surprise me. Value, however, is assuredly in the eye of the beholder - who's to say that $10 hat you got is a better value than that $50 your brother got, ultimately, when you're probably pursuing entirely different hat-related objectives?

Apparently we all think we're thriftier than everyone around us

@supercereal: Very good point. People can be blind to the point of hypocrisy when it comes to their own flaws.

Other people, that is. Not me, of course. :)

wants to shop at the GAP.
For some reason, I'm surprised we are all so white...

@bornonbord: What you say is true:

"I'm suprised we're all so white..."

...really? What does that even mean?!

@Nekoincardine: I think that's it. Very few of us would admit we're frivolous in our spending. I also think its the value we attach to things. I know some people who live in huge houses, have nice cars, and have never left the country. I'm the opposite.

Poll Results: Our Significant Others Aren't Very Thrifty

...But we love them anyway. Right? Right?

/crickets

But the question about the GAP was multiple choice, and oddly restrictive. So, yeah, if I had to choose only one store to shop at for the rest of my life, and the choices were between WalMart, Macy's, the Gap, Nordstrom, or a thrift store (I forget what the other choices were, if any) I would go to the Gap because their jeans fit me. Fortunately, I do not have to choose just one clothing store for the rest of my life, and in real life I only shop at the Gap when I need new jeans.

You can prove anything with a poll.

@trashbaby: Pretty sure the Gap is somewhere on the "Stuff White People Like" website.

I don't think I took that poll, but I'd say my husband and I are equally thrifty. We both have our indulgences, and we both have things on which we're willing to spend some extra cash (after bad experiences with the cheap stuff, usually), but we also have a strong streak of "let's use this until it falls apart." And we're both interested in retirement investment, stashing away emergency cash, and soforth.

Buy it. Use it. Keep using it until it dies.

I was called "cheap son-of-a-bytch" by a date many years ago. I thought she was paying me a compliment.

@StanTheManDean:
I was once told "you're just like my father". It was no compliment!

Thrifty office hint. When you're running out of paper, just take a blank sheet, put it in the Xerox machine and run 100 copies.

@Vandelay Import Export:

10/10 For posting from Yes, Prime Minister.

minus several million for still saying only the tired old line every time there is an article with the word "poll" in it.

I knew it!! This poll just proves my hypothesis that Mexicans don't shop at L.L. Bean. Thanks, Cognitive Daily!

My kid has some GAP/Old Navy clothes...all of which came from the resale shop. So I'm happy that so many people buy all of that expensive but durable clothing so frugal types like me can reap the benefits later, muahahaha...

And I am more thrifty than my spouse, but he's also very very thrifty. I'm just more into the slightly insane end. I'm more actively thrifty, he's more the type to not bother to spend. And I'm in charge of lumping the soap.

No surprise when people are self reporting. Typically the majority of people think they are above average in whatever you're rating. The worse someone is at a particular trait, the more likely they are to mis-rate themselves. They simply don't see the flaws that more competent people see.

So, we're thriftier than other people. C'mon, Cognitive Daily: are we sexier too?
And, if we sexier people thriftily reuse our condoms, then can we truly say we're thriftier than our significant other?

@MostlyHarmless: Especially when I'll bet he couldn't define "sample size", "standard deviation" or "correlation", nor find the independent vs dependent variable. Even using a 90% CI.
To be fair, I don't mean to single him out; it's more that anyone that throws out that tired response without bothering to educate themselves is a person choosing to live in darkness.

@SteveBMD: Yet the ones that read Consumerist (or Cognitive Daily) would choose Nordstrom's. Clearly, value shoppers. And happily transnational.
That said, CD's notes highlight they only received 20 responses from the Southern Americas, so they're aware of the likely bias.

This is a good example of how selective sampling causes skewed results. People who read the consumerist are people who are interested in consumer issues and almost certainly in saving money. By sending a bunch of readers over there, the results were skewed toward those who are more concerned with frugality.

Add to this the fact that most people feel their spending choices are "right" or "justified" and that the choices of others are not as prudent as theirs and you have completely invalid survey results.

I didn't take part in the poll, but I'd rate my husband and I as both pretty frugal. We're not trying to save money, but we have little interest in casual shopping or buying things we don't really need. We're the sort of people who save money without budgeting because we have so little interest in acquiring goods fo any sort. We're the type of people who are killing the economic recovery (but we've been killing it for at least the past 7 years).

@CumaeanSibyl: I think it's on the "stuff White People liked in 1997" website.

Well, I'll fess up that Mr. Sam is more thrifty than I am, but I do a better job of managing money. Mr. Sam also spends more of "his" money on purchases that benefit the family like grocery shopping and home repairs and I spend more of "my" money on purchases that benefit me like new shoes and art.

@Geekybiker: Narcissists always think they're better than average. Just like it's always the "other driver" who causes all those accidents (for some reason this is particularly the case when it's snowing). It also keeps the population growing; after all if you're a better driver and more thrifty, why not pass your greatness along to 2.5 or so kids.

@ARP: Yeah, everyone has their one thing (even us Consumerists). I might take public transit and clip coupons, but I will nevar give up my morning latte.

@SadSam: I think you could argue that buying art benefits society as a whole, by supporting culture. At least that's what you should be arguing, to Mr. Sam.

@kaceetheconsumer: The hubby and I do that too! I'm also a recent thrift store junkie who is now in the process of assembling a brand name wardrobe entirely out of thrift store finds. I'm having pretty good luck :)

I can't say I've been very thrifty lately. We had a freak out moment when we realized that we had upcoming plans that would curtail a good deal of our Fall 2009 television watching, and responded by buying a Tivo box. I knew I couldn't last more than a few months without DVR.

@Ayarkay: And buying shoes also benefits society as a whole because they can be interpreted as collaborative works of art. The company makes the pretty shoes, you have to wear them to show them off.

@magic8ball: And I decided I was allowed to interpret "The Gap" as "Gap Stores, Inc., including Banana Republic and Old Navy."

I really am more thrifty than my boss, though. I live on an assistant's salary, in a 1-bed apartment, and she's got 30+ years of executive-level pay and a husband who makes same. If I had that level of money, I'd be less thrifty too!

As for my significant other, it's not so much that he's not thrifty as it is that he has no idea how a household actually operates. But we're definitely getting there...!

@ShariC: I don't think there was any pretense at this being legitimate data, though. If there was, that's pretty ludicrous.

@floraposte: And I interepreted Nordstrom as "if I had unlimited funding" - so I guess maybe the results were skewed in that way as well.

@Etoiles: It's definitely important to establish roles according to personality strengths, not according to gender or any frivolous thing like that. I manage the money and handle the bills, and Mr. Pi handles fixing things, general upkeep of our apartment and the car, and the cleaning our apartment. I can pick up and organize, but I'm really bad at actual cleaning.

@HRHKingFridayXX: But that's the first and most important thing you're supposed to do to save money!

/sarc

@ARP: Right, we spend in a way that makes sense to us, and if it means we're in debt, we're not likely to consider our spending at fault. I figure I'm reasonably thrifty because I don't make a huge amount of money yet I don't carry debt, but I also don't display all of the "thrift markers" the study was asking about.

@msquier: I wish I could do that. I'm too tall and nothing fits me. All the tiny people put their clothes in the thrift shops and I can't find anything! :(

@CumaeanSibyl: Regarding indulgences - I think that having different priorities really skews the results of this poll. What looks like a sensible buy to me may look like an indulgence to my husband, and vice versa.

@Coles_Law: Hey. I resemble that remark.

@B: And it actually snared a higher vote from Asian respondents than North Americans here.

@pecan 3.14159265: Which would be a good way to interpret shopping at Nordstrom, I think.

@Trai_Dep: I don't know, but if we reuse our condoms, I bet there will be MORE of us!

@supercereal: It's actually a well-known psychological phenomenon called the "better-than-average effect" or the "above-average effect." People always say they are above the average on positive traits and below the average on negative traits.

@H3ion: I recently worked with someone who would have believed this and tried it.

@subtlefrog: Or, it just seems that way because we're always lying in an exhausted, sweaty heap in our beds.

Who are these people who all think they're more thrifty than their parents? I thought the norm was to rebel against your parents' parsimoniousness by saying "When I grow up, I'm going to toss those dime-a-dozen zip-lock bags in the fucking trash."

@Michael Belisle: Yes, I definitely marked myself as "less thrifty," even as I rejoiced in my avoidance of washing plastic wrap and reusing it.

@bornonbord: What you say is true: I picked Macy's, myself. Maybe it's because my family is ethnically mixed?