As my wife and I have progressed in our relationships with various friends, our values have changed and some friends will fall off. That is the nature of relationships. If you are in a situation where your financial values are no longer equal to those of your friends, then you probably need to re-evaluate the friendships especially if you are on the losing end. My wife is reporting back from her hometown. She isn’t up to going out every night and going shopping every day like some of her friends. That makes her friends a bit annoyed at her, because they feel she is being a bit cheap and boring. Should she have to go out in order to appease her friends? I think not.

Cheap is when you aren’t paying your equal share. Frugal is being conscious of your finances and wanting to maintain your standard of living within your means. If you pay your equal share, and your friends think you are being cheap for not contributing more than what you owe, then you probably want to evaluate the nature of your friendships.

The banks are not offering 0% BT out of the goodness of their hearts. They advertise to pay or do what you want with the BT. It is neither illegal nor unethical to do exactly that. banks have earned a record level of profits from consumer credit, so who is really being cheap and unethical? The banks have done all their financial inking on the matter and know that they will profit substantially from these promotions; otherwise, they wouldn’t be offering them. They have already calculated in the very small minority of people from who they will not be able to profit.

if it is illegal, then by engaging in illegal acts you choose to take the risk of being punished for those acts. Ethics are value based and is something that you have to personally decide if you can live with yourself for engaging in ethical/unethical acts. The same is true of breaking the law. Being frugal doesn’t have to mean breaking the law or breaking your values. Neither does being cheap.

giving to charity: i’m not a fan of it. i cannot justify the money wasted by the organizations. now there are plenty of websites that track operating costs of charities, but they still waste money. i think living your life as a good person and being fair is better than giving to charity. I cannot justify the many people who abuse charities in favor of the minority that are really deserving of it. I rather give directly or put in personal sweat equity to those who are deserving of it. i also cannot justify having tax breaks for giving to charities either. I’d rather see that there were no tax breaks for giving to charities.