The blog post beneath this one about the couple who lives on less than $5000 a year made me think. One topic I never see covered is “extreme personal finance” or even simple frugality in relationship to being single.
I’m not talking about being a cheapskate during dinner, but maintaining a low powered ( & eco friendly ) lifestyle while actively dating.
Like it or not first impressions count and first impressions are often based on superficialities…even by nice and otherwise deep people.
Yes, there is always the rare hippy chick out there that will not care if you drive an old car or live in a cheap apartment, but those people are rare and they may not be what everyone is looking for.
Other people don’t see old cars and cheap apartments as choices for a well thought out philosophy, but as indicators that someone does not have his life together.
Is frugality beyond a certain point for married people only?
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My opinion is that you’ll weed out the people who aren’t so compatible by dating low cost/ high eco :o)
One of the things that really attracted me to B were his views on things like that :o)
^ditto.
PW
Why not arrange things so that your potential lady friend doesn’t see your car or your apartment on the first couple of dates? It’s not so much that you’re hiding them, but that you want her first impression to be one of you, not your stuff. Then, if you’re both interested in pursuing things further, you can talk about your values, so that she knows what to expect.
I’m famous:
A comment I made on Getting Rich Slowly that inspired this post also inspired a post there. I haven’t read all of the comments, but I have been pleasantly surprised. I was expecting a chorus of “be yourself”s, “don’t care what other people think”s, etc. Some of those stock comments are there, but also some unexpected and interesting views.
I like the Getting Rich Slowly blog, but I really think the comments left by others, above, on your own site, hit the nail on the head better than most of the comments on the GRS blog: you don’t want to attract a materialistic woman, or a shallow one.
And what the heck does “cheap” mean? Without context, it doesn’t mean anything. Here is what I think does mean something: does my date listen to my words? Does he care? Is he _thoughtful_ about _why_ he is frugal? Is he frugal without compromising _important things_? And “important things” is something to be negotiated.
For (not all but) most of us, being “frugal” by not buying very healthy food is messing up one of the “important things”
Also my parner really wanted an inside-the-apartment washer drier..this was not important to me, but it was important to her, and she was flexible about other things..so I went along. That’s a quality you want in a partner, not one who is completely inflexible (on my end) and also not one who has to have everything exactly her way (at her end) but a sane healthy compromise (as we did here) where the main important things to each party are met (I had some prefs about noise and bike-ability to work) PLUS keep the overall budget to a reasonable level.
As far as dress, it’s all context dependent. At a vegan potluck? Serving food to the homeless? Going to a Protest? At a friend’s party? At a conference for one’s profession? Answer to what is reasonable way to dress depends on the context.