August 24, 2010--Cheap Date

For years Americans have been urged to save more money. Up until recently we had one of the lowest savings rates among developed countries. In some years the rate has even been negative--we spent more per capita than we saved. In other words, we were going deeper and deeper into debt.

I know people who prematurely drained their 401 (k) retirement accounts--paying taxes and penalties to do so--so that they could take an extended once-in-a-lifetime vacation. I know others who are approaching their sixties, who have had good jobs, but have saved so little that they will have a difficult time maintaining their life style after they retire.

So now, as the result of the recession, with people pulling back from overspending, worried about the future, fearing that things are likely to get worse before they, if ever, get better, Americans are saving at near record-high levels. In June the savings rate hit 6.4 percent. At the height of the recession it was as high as 8.2 percent.

In addition to making some economists and government officials concerned that all this saving is curtailing consumption--the real engine that has been driving our economy since at least the end of World War II--it is now being reported that saving money isn't sexy!

Who wants to date someone, the New York Times reports, if he (and we're still retrogressively talking "he") is saving too much and not spending it on me? (Full article linked below.)

One would think that in these hard and unpredictable times finding a potential mate who is being careful about money and is thinking as much about the future as Saturday night would be attractive. But, no, from various sources we are learning that this is not the case. Being frugal for many is as unattractive as being out of shape or working for an insurance company.

The most disturbing evidence is from ING Direct, a company that would like to see you save as much as possible. Of course entrusting it to them. They surveyed 1,000 people, asking them which words would come to mind if someone was fixing them up on a blind date with someone who is described as being frugal. Maybe there was some problem with the word "frugal," perhaps it has negative connotations; but, be that as if may, 27 percent responded "stingy," 13 percent said "boring," and just 3.7 percent said "sexy."

Closer to the matter of meeting people, EHarmony, one of the most turned-to online dating sites, reported that when they ran the numbers on 30 million matches, 25 percent of both men and women were shown to be more likely to allow a potential mate "reach out" to them if they described themselves as a saver as opposed to a spender.

That then left the other 75 percent.

According to Pam Epstein, who wrote her PhD thesis on the history of meeting people through both print and Internet personnel ads and services such as EHarmony, that though in the past it was common for women to overtly say they were looking for men who could "support a wife comfortably," in large part because work and career opportunities did not then enable women to do as well financially, among the 75 percent who prefer spenders to savers, Dr, Epstein also says that if you look at the pictures men post on sites such as JDate, many of these guys show themselves posed in front of their cars or boats or stretched out in their Soho lofts.

Clearly frugality doesn't stand a chance when it comes to a Beemer or a house in the Hamptons.