How to Money · Friday, September 25, 2026
The hosts discuss the difference between being frugal and being cheap, highlighting how purchasing inexpensive items can lead to higher costs over time due to frequent replacements. They use windshield wipers as an example of a purchase where quality outweighs initial cost savings.
“One risk, Joel, that we all take when it comes to our money and when we purchase items is going cheap, right? Like this is core to the am I being frugal or am I being cheap sort of argument that we have. Uh, if you end up buying too cheap, you end up having to replace that item. Therefore squandering all of the potential savings that you may have garnered by going with a discounted item in the first place.”
“This is why you and I have never bought anything. I believe you haven't either from Shein or Timu, like the cheap Chinese sites. There's a bunch of them.”
“I specifically used to just get the cheapest wipers possible, but I remember it hadn't been very long. We'd suck some wipers on the van and in the winter, especially when the rubber gets kind of hard, you're using the wipers and it like, it's like, it's just really noisy as like the rubber skipping across the windshield. And I remember riding with you in your van. And your wipers are just like making no noise. I'm like, dude, what wipers are you using? You're like, oh, it's the ones they got up at Costco on sale. I'm just like, dang it.”