Being frugal is full of traps. Traps that are most effective on proud and ungrateful hearts: in essence mine. To chose frugality over spending to my heart’s content means that I must refrain in ways that no one else seems to be doing. And that chasm between my imagined reality and the truth gives opportunity for a certain someone to stick an IV in my arm and start the flow of poisonous lies. The poison takes effect immediately. "I alone in this hedonistic America am practicing such virtues as temperance and self-discipline (Well, the nuns and monks are too but no one else). Everyone else is blind to their consumeristic waste and gluttony. Every middle-class person has NO appreciation for such simple luxuries like having their cars washed and shopping at Ralphs and buying a new shirt and and having meat at every meal and running their heaters and air conditioning at whim. If I were to have these things I would be grateful! "But I am grateful even without those