Tight by nature

Our attitudes toward money sometimes feel instinctual.

Some people spend compulsively. Some cringe at the thought of spending anything.

Neal Templin, who writes the Wall Street Journal’s Cheapskate column, explores his own tightwaddity in response to a reader who questioned whether his family might not celebrate his death, due to his excessive cheapness.

If the question is whether I ever completely forget about money and just do whatever the heck I feel like — no matter the cost — the answer, I’m afraid, is no.

We’ve raised three kids on one salary, and it seemed wrong to me to spend money we don’t have. On top of that, I hate waste. And paying too much for something makes me a little ill.

Sometimes I wish I had a little bit of that knee-jerk frugality — I can spend money thoughtlessly, and my younger years were a case study in how not to run a financial life. I feel like my financial default is still essentially set at spend, not save, though it’s nothing like it used to be.

Templin points out that, given the current economy, a lot of us want to be more like him.

But has being tight with a dollar gotten in the way of my enjoying life? Yes, there have been times. But to be perfectly frank, most of the things I enjoy most in life — reading, writing, hiking, spending time with friends and family — aren’t horribly expensive. I actually get paid to write. So I feel fortunate, not deprived.

I also know that we live in a society that has lived beyond its means. Much of the wealth around us was created by a huge increase in debt. Now, with the economy shrinking and credit tightening, much of that debt is going to disappear. Like it or not, America may once again become a place where people watch every penny.

Are you a spender or a saver by nature? And how do you battle your natural tendency when it becomes too much?