Penny-pinchers, and proud of it

For some, saving a buck is a lifelong habit

Criss and Todd Robinson of Lynn with some of the items they purchased at yard sales, discount stores, and thrift outlets. (Boston Globne Photo / Lisa Poole)

Criss Robinson can tell you, down to the penny, what she paid two months ago for an 18-ounce jar of peanut butter, the low-fat, super-chunk style.

Ditto for every other item on her food shopping list, not to mention each household expense. She tracks them on spreadsheets, some going back years. An inveterate collector of coupons and a denizen of thrift stores, yard sales, and discount outlets, the 47-year-old healthcare industry project manager rarely pays full price for anything for her Lynn home.

"I once made curtains for an entire home by buying sheets from Building 19 for a little over $100," said Robinson, who draws a distinct line between frugal and cheap.

"Being frugal is saving money," she explained, "and being cheap is you don't want to let any of your money go."

A sinking economy has forced many to make amends for spending sins of the past. But for Robinson, her husband, Todd, an electrical engineer, and countless other kindred spirits, frugality is a way of life, pretty much hardwired from childhood. Their thriftiness comes in a wide variety of intensities - just Google "frugal" and count the 7.2 million ways - but most of them seem to possess a passion for doing more with less.

Salem State College marketing professor Joseph Aiyeku calls the phenomenon "voluntary simplicity," a term coined by American philosopher Richard Gregg to describe the "sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter" he observed while traveling in India in the 1920s.

Since then, things have changed considerably.

"Even industries are beginning to understand these frugal people," said Aiyeku, who has been tracking an uptick in the number of companies that are marketing products aimed at those who want to live well for less.

These are not people living in caves by candlelight.

Aiyeku said that many in the ranks of the faithfully frugal live quite well, but in relative obscurity. Then when the economy goes south, others take notice.

"I went years without calls, and all of a sudden I am getting calls again," said Amy Dacyczyn, 52, a mother from Maine who launched a monthly newsletter, The Tightwad Gazette, during the 1990 recession. Full of penny-pinching essays and quirky tips - how to create hammocks and volleyball nets from plastic six-pack rings was a favorite - the publication attracted legions of followers. Six years, three books, and more than 60,000 subscribers later, Dacyczyn decided she'd said everything she wanted to, and retired to spend more time with her children.

Still, she is still frugal. So, too, are some of her kids.

"My 23-year-old daughter complained the most while growing up and is the tightest one now," said Dacyczyn, who prides herself on the many recycled Christmas presents she found for her children, including metal detectors.

Frugality in boom times as well as during a bust is one thing. But staying power through holidays and parenthood is the real test.

Massoud Farahbakhsh, a Salem State College professor of management and international business, said his two daughters, now 25 and 20, often called him stingy while growing up in Marblehead. Other teenagers had cellphones and all manner of electronic gadgets.

But Farahbakhsh and his wife, Rebecca, a high school teacher, held the line. They opened savings accounts for their daughters when they were very young, gave them some cash at holidays and birthdays, and then encouraged them to work, save, and prioritize before spending.

Today, he said, his older daughter works for a nonprofit agency and has a healthy savings account. The younger one is still in college, but the family has stashed away enough to cover those bills, too.

"My wife and I never borrowed money," said Farahbakhsh, 56, who wears 10-year-old suits and counts his home mortgage - already paid off - as the only item bought on credit.

"We buy our cars in cash and we keep them for at least 10 to 15 years," he said.

Many frugal followers say that if they can't afford it, they don't buy it. And forget about buying goods or services on installment plans.

Pay service fees? Are you kidding?

Andy DeSimone, founder and president of a small high-tech company in Gloucester, calls his thriftiness a "state of mind." Raised by Depression-era parents, DeSimone, 47, brings leftovers to work, does many of the major repairs on his home, and changes the oil in his 10-year-old Toyota pickup, which has 173,000 miles on it.

It's not that he can't afford to hire someone else to do these jobs.

"If you want to be frugal, you really have to enjoy it," he said.

"There is the feeling of self-satisfaction . . . out of changing your own oil, or anything you can do as a person and not necessarily as a consumer all the time."

Or, as Jor Molchan and his wife, Lorelei Ventocilla, put it, a frugal lifestyle is about "experiences, not stuff."

Like many of their thrifty-minded counterparts, the Malden couple said they value friends, family, and travel over acquiring material objects.

They've visited many countries, but share one car, a 14-year-old BMW, have a 10-year-old TV, and still use 20-year-old tennis rackets.

"Our parents had a conservative way of spending money and it just kind of rubbed off," said Ventocilla, 35, who takes the train to her Boston job as a program manager at a college.

They said their friends can't figure out how they pull off such exotic vacations, given their seemingly modest lifestyle.

"I think people think we have a hoard of gold in the back closet, and we count it on Tuesdays," said Molchan, 36, who has tutored adults on budgeting and spending, and works as a project and relationship manager in banking.

"We feel rich," he said, "because we're frugal."

Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com.