The fad of frugality
I'm starting to think we're kidding ourselves a little bit, when it comes to coffee.
Is any daily habit more subject to the whims and attentions of our suddenly rediscovered frugality? Is any item more likely to be suggested as a way to save than giving up the "$4 latte"?
When I saw the news that more Americans were making their coffee at home -- just as I've started doing -- it made me wonder if for some of us it isn't just a bit of tourism in the frugal lifestyle -- an act that's more symbolic and transient than a true change of direction. A little thing that we're using to bluff ourselves into thinking we're changing more than we are.
One writer at Wise Bread argues true frugality involves more than simply seeking good deals and small savings. But first, here's a clip from the Reuters story about the coffee survey:
Of the people who said they had drunk coffee the previous day, 83 percent said they had made it at home -- up 5 points compared with year-ago figures.
"The coffee industry as a whole doesn't seem to be suffering at all, seems to be recession resilient," said Mark DiDomenico, director of Customer and Consumer Insights for Sara Lee Foodservice.
"Gourmet coffee is where we saw some of the decline," said DiDomenico, who presented the survey results on the convention's final day.
Daily consumption of gourmet coffee, which includes espresso-based drinks, fell to 14 percent, back to levels seen in 2007, he said. In 2008, this category was at 17 percent.
Read the whole story here. A couple of things strike me about those figures -- and one is how small those percentage changes are. After all the talk about brown-bagging and making coffee at home, the actual change in behavior seems pretty tiny.
Meanwhile, Philip Brewer, writing at Wise Bread, argues that finding true frugality requires more than simply seeking good deals -- as good as that is. Brewer is writing about general tactics, not specifics: Doing without, substituting, renting and borrowing.
One reason that I tend to gravitate to these options rather than "deals" is that so many deals are specifically structured to give you a taste of "the good stuff." Airline upgrades are often cheap, on the theory that once you fly business class you won't willingly go back to coach. Wine stores have regular sales on premium wines, hoping that, after some number of cheap bottles of expensive wine, you'll decide to upgrade your cellar.
Read the full post here.
Doing without. What a concept. Meanwhile, I'm bringing my Thermos full of coffee to work, and feeling kind of righteous about it. And deep down, I think I'm assuming that they day may come when that Thermos goes back into the cupboard for ski trips.
What do you see as the difference between true frugality and skipping your daily latte? Or is there any difference?
