them about our work, they nod along and say, “That’s the way I am: very focused on money.” But frugality does not capture the experience of scarcity. The frugal have a principled conscientiousness about money. The poor must be vigilant about trade-offs. When making a purchase, the frugal consider whether the price is “good.” The poor, in contrast, must ask themselves what they must give up to afford that price. Without engaging in real trade-offs, the frugal, like all those who live with abundance, have a hard time making sense of a dollar. So they rely on context.
