![\"Smith](\"https:\/\/apicms.thestar.com.my\/uploads\/images\/2026\/06\/12\/3954807.jpg\")
Smith says people should prioritise on spending what makes sense for them, and adjust elsewhere. Photo: The New York Times<\/p>\nWhen Sandy Smith\u2019s stepfather lost his job during the Great Recession, she found herself supporting multiple family members and two households.<\/p>\n
Her family, which emigrated from Jamaica, had always been frugal, but to make her budget work, she became a \u201ccrazy personal finance person\u201d for her friend group. She kept a binder of coupons and let her friends know what deals they should check out, bought her clothes at Walmart, plugged the holes in her shoes with cardboard and skipped vacations for years while her friends travelled.<\/p>\n
Her experiences led Smith, 48, to start a personal finance website called Yes I Am Cheap in 2008.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere definitely is a negative connotation with being cheap, and that\u2019s why I embraced it,\u201d Smith said. \u201cLet me not even play with the word frugal \u2013 I\u2019m cheap,\u201d she said. \u201cI had to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
She started a Facebook Messenger group among her close friends, an annual Zoom pajama party to set financial goals and quarterly check-ins to discuss their finances. Smith has gone from being US$200,000 (RM792,000) in debt to having a net worth of more than US$1mil (RM3.92mil). Friends who initially thought she was \u201cout of her mind\u201d now come to her for advice.<\/p>\n
A friend like Smith can shift the financial future of not only a close group but a wider social network. Networks spread behaviour \u2013 a concept called social contagion \u2013 but some members of a group, such as those with more education and those who are most connected, can shape what the crew believes and does more powerfully.<\/p>\n
A 2024 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, for example, showed that the more connections you have with people who earn a high income, the more likely you are to invest and save.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one should be surprised that people are affected by the financial decisions of those around them \u2013 even indirectly,\u201d said Nicholas Christakis, a Sterling professor of social and natural science at Yale, who also directs the university\u2019s Human Nature Lab.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are affected not only by your friends but by your friends\u2019 friends and your friends\u2019 friends\u2019 friends \u2013 people you don\u2019t even know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith says people should prioritise on spending what makes sense for them, and adjust elsewhere. Photo: The New York Times<\/p>\n
Christakis has conducted research and experiments on the spread of obesity, smoking and even altruism through relationships. In a randomised controlled study published in Science in 2024, he and his colleagues showed that behaviours spread more efficiently in a community when introduced through well-connected people.<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s efficient to copy others, and actually is a good strategy most of the time, Christakis said, we evolved to use the people around us as models for behaviour. Each person can act as an influencer within his or her friend group, with more responsible financial decisions affecting people the influencer has never even met.<\/p>\n
And each social member you recruit to your beliefs and actions adds to the likelihood they\u2019ll be adopted by everyone, for better or worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though I pride myself as someone who thinks for himself, and who studies this phenomenon, I also find myself sometimes making stupid decisions,\u201d he said. \u201cI look around and say: \u2018Well, everyone else is doing this. I should do it, too.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Christakis wouldn\u2019t recommend simply ditching friends because of their bad financial habits, but he relates it to the way Alcoholics Anonymous uses social networks to encourage sober behaviour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re finding yourself having really bad financial habits because all of your friends have terrible financial habits, that can reinforce what you\u2019re doing,\u201d Christakis said. \u201cIt would be helpful to you if you got a new community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Becoming the frugal friend<\/b><\/p>\n
Jill Sirianni met Jen Smith in St. Petersburg, Florida, when she was living and travelling in a recreational vehicle to cut expenses and pay down her US$60,000 (RM237,000) debt. During their first meeting, they bonded over the fact that Smith, 37, and her husband had chosen the very bar they were in because it had free parking and gave out free shots at sunset, as they were trying to pay down their own US$78,000 (RM309,000) debt in two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe became fast friends because we found this safe space to be able to talk about money,\u201d Sirianni, 36, said. She added, \u201cWe were able to do fun things together, knowing we had this shared or similar financial goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two friends started a podcast, \u201cFrugal Friends,\u201d and co-wrote a book, Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. Smith said cutting down on her spending to pay off debt gave her clarity in her social life.<\/p>\n
During her two years of intense frugality, she saw much less of one of her best friends from college, who was enjoying married life with weekend trips, sushi dinners and coffee shop dates. After she paid off her debt, the friendship picked back up with a moderate level of frugality, with cooking meals together or occasional takeout.<\/p>\n
These days, with two children under 10, Smith is navigating mum groups. Recently, outnumbered and entering a well-established friendship culture not of her own making, she found herself going to a mum dinner that ended up costing around US$75 (RM297), more than she wanted.<\/p>\n
![\"Sirianni](\"https:\/\/apicms.thestar.com.my\/uploads\/images\/2026\/06\/12\/3954808.jpg\")
Sirianni (left) and Smith host the Frugal Friends Podcast. Photo: The New York Times<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re newer friends, so it\u2019s not like I felt safe being like, \u2018You know, sorry, I wrote a book on how to spend money, and so this is not my vibe,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cYou also have to navigate social norms when you\u2019re trying to go against the flow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having a friend walking a similar financial path helped normalise a more frugal lifestyle and a feeling that she wasn\u2019t the only one, Sirianni said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was almost a badge of honour to say, \u2018I got this for free,\u2019 or \u2018I got this secondhand,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Smith says social media superpowers the mirage of what\u2019s normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s looking at the same things on social media, thinking this is the way every friend group operates: We\u2019re going to brunch, we\u2019re going on vacation together, we\u2019re having US$6,000 (RM23,7000) bachelorette parties,\u201d she said. \u201cNow it\u2019s just perceived normalisation, and it just takes one little act of bravery to shift things.\u201d<\/p>\n
She suggested limiting your intake of scrolling, adding more in-person connection and curating your feed to people you actually have a relationship with or those who influence you toward more financial stability.<\/p>\n
She relates the spending culture of a friend group to a flowing river. It\u2019s easiest to flow along with it, while just standing still can feel scary, let alone trying to change the course of the flow.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I do think on the other side there\u2019s a lot of reward and a lot of self-understanding, problem solving, creativity that can be implemented,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Smith suggests being vocal about your bigger goals, such as trying to pay off credit cards, as well as the time frame it will take you, so your friends understand it won\u2019t be forever. She and Sirianni suggest not declining invitations, but adjusting them to a less expensive option, such as inviting people over.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they respect you, they\u2019ll respect that you have a goal that you want to achieve,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to come to some kind of compromise if they really want to be in a relationship with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding real community<\/b><\/p>\n
Smith suggested that people who felt self-conscious about needing to spend less could make quiet changes, such as slowing down the frequency with which they get certain services done or lowering the quality of products they buy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou prioritise what makes sense for you, and you adjust elsewhere,\u201d Smith said, advising against black-and-white thinking of frugal versus normal. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole lot of nuance out there, and the worst thing I think I would want somebody to do is to cut to the bone, then look back and regret not doing something.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she said she had no regrets about the choices she had made to cut expenses, including not seeing family in Jamaica for years because the hundreds of dollars for a flight looked more important to spend on a bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like, especially these days, everything is luxury,\u201d Smith said. She described her friend group as solidly employed and taking vacations that aren\u2019t too extravagant.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody wants to be the person on the budget watching paychecks and stuff, but if you\u2019re lucky, there\u2019s that one person in the friend group that kind of reins it back in, and I\u2019m that person,\u201d she said. \u2013 \u00a92026 The New York Times Company<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Sandy Smith\u2019s stepfather lost his job during the Great Recession, she found herself supporting multiple family members…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":946992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[15],"tags":[64,92474,125329,18217,72413,16790,255,16796,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-946991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-connections","tag-discipline","tag-financial","tag-friends","tag-frugal","tag-personal-finance","tag-spending-habits","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116951122638826818","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}