A great comment by a poster TC in my post “Feeling Broke – Discuss It” wrote

I think feeling “poor” is sort of the new affluence. Used to brag about the great stuff you bought? Now you brag about how much you are having to tighten your belt.

So is poor then new “affluence”?  Are we starting to become proud of our frugality?  Are we actually complaining as if to prove to others that we’re financially savvy and the new keeping up with the Joneses frugality not extravagance?

In other cultures frugality is celebrated I think.  Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.  My DH in graduate school was told by a Chinese graduate student that he would make Chinese people proud.  If he ever went to China his “frugality” would be celebrated and imitated.  My DH laughed but I wonder if it’s not true?

Growing up either during the Great Depression or World War I and II, many people lived a frugal/thrifty life to survive.  To them the idea of waste was horrifying.  In some ways I think Americans took up the challenge of being thrifty to a new level.  They celebrated their abilities to live on less.

Then their children the boomers learned these habits.  But when the Boomers had children, all rules went out the window.  Suddenly they wanted their children (Generation X and Y) to have everything they didn’t.  A natural desire in parents.

But I wonder now if these economic times aren’t going to reawakening our frugal roots?  That the lessons our grandparents and great-grandparents taught our parents aren’t going to be passed on to us now?  We will start to live on less and be proud of it.

So is living “poor” or frugally going to be the new status symbol?  Are we all going to try to Keep up with the “Frugalites” instead of the Joneses?