The Frugal Rich Couple

A cousin of mine with whom I grew up with, here in California, moved to New York for graduate school a few years ago and since have settled there with a husband and a new home. her, her sister, and I were the three punks who did alot of things together, including studying, partying, and dating. She played the mother hen to us, the younger two. We shared our good times and bad times growing up.

I always knew that she was the frugal type but it seems that she has found her match through her husband. Between her and her husband, their annual income is approximately around $250,000 plus. She has one nice dress that she wears to any nice function that she has had for at least five years. She once told us that her husband had sternly asked her to be frugal when she ordered soup along with her lunch special at a cheap restaurant in Chinatown. The cost of the entire meal was $13.00 and that's included with the soup she ordered. This was on the once-in-a-blue-moon "date" they try to have in order to escape the stresses of everyday life. I remember she was furious...not because her husband was a cheap date but because he has not realized that she has been pinching and saving every chance she got for the last year and that these "dates" that rarely came were the only ones that were saving her from insanity.

I know them as a happy couple but I can't imagine earning that much (that's a mountain of gold for me) and still having to worry about a $1.00 soup on the occasional splurge with my husband. But then, maybe because they're that frugal, that they can save enough to have a big house, feed her mother-in-law, and live in New York.