Daniel Dancer and Pros and Cons of Being a Frugal Penny Pincher
It's Saturday night in 1760 - a good night to party in England, even in the Georgian era. Everyone you know is down at the pub drinking birch wine made from real tree sap, carrot beer or fancy buttered totties. It's chilly in Middlesex County. The ground is damp and muddy almost year-round, and a space heater in the 1700s is just a burning log. So naturally, you'd be at the pub too, getting warm and getting your toddies on. But not if you're frugal. No, if you’re a miser, you stay away from the expensive liquor and opt for cheap beer instead. Maybe you’d take a watered down ale to go, or maybe you take the cheapest, most my misery option of all - drinking a tall mug of rainwater from the barrel under the pub's gutter.
And if you're Daniel Dancer, the most notorious penny-pincher in history, you would skip the pub altogether. You would walk barefoot through the mud so you could look for bones along the roadside - cow bones, sheep bones, and horse bones that were abandoned by farmers and softened by the rain. And if a dog tries to grab the same bone as you, fight him! And I kid you not; Daniel Dancer did that on several occasions. This man punched dogs over animal bones, all so he could save money on dumpling a rainwater soup he boiled once a week. Did we forget to mention that Saturday was ‘soup day’ for Daniel Dancer? What a party, right?
After an evening fighting dogs for bones and trudging through puddles, Daniel would come home to his cold farmhouse. He would climb in through the window since he kept the door nailed shut to ward off burglars and visitors, and he would boil all the bones he had collected that week along with cooking the roadkill he found. However, it was always exactly seven dumplings because the standard budget he limited himself to was a ball of dough a day. At this point, you may be thinking a barefoot old coot wandering the countryside scrounging bone for dumplings and bone broth must have been dirt poor, right?
But in fact, Daniel Dancer was one of the wealthiest men in the county. Daniel and his sister owned an 80-acre farm in the rich Meadowlands of Pinner in Greater London. He was just an incredible Miser - history's most incredible miser. He was even more of a miser than the famous Charles Dickens character, which was loosely based on Daniel. That's right. The curmudgeonly old miser from A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge, was based on Daniel Dancer. Except Daniel Dancer was so extreme in this penny-pinching. Charles Dickens had to soften his character to fit him into the story. This is the man we are learning from today.
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Extreme cheapskates, penny pinchers, and frugal living have all come up in the National Zeitgeist lately. None of us want to be caught dumpster diving by our co-workers, and it would ruin our lives if caught fishing takeout box out of the trash. Let's face it; being a miser is kind of gross in today's society. Penny-pinching pinch too much can cause potential romantic partners to think you're poor, and friends might stage interventions. And if you're really shameless about your miserly habits, you'll end up on TV. On the other hand, maybe penny pinchers get the last laugh after all. There are plenty of YouTube videos of misers bragging about getting the weeks’ worth of groceries for $5 by clipping coupons or 30-year old’s who are retired because they ride cycled bikes and live in sheds.
So today, we want to ask how cheap is too cheap? And to find out if saving fast food napkins for 20 years is a warning sign, we have a few myths to bust.
Myth 1: Is penny-pinching a mental illness? What if I secretly wish to go through life with zero overhead? Or is it better for our mental health to savor her life and splurge a little?
Joe: I never look around downtown and see people who appear homeless and think to myself, they must own 80 freaking acres. What the heck was Daniel Dancer doing on the farm that made him so much money?
Todd: Daniel inherited an 80-acre farm. It was very lush farmland, and it was right outside of London. Now, his grandfather and father were both been farmers and also notable misers. So, this was a generational business, and Daniel was a potential miser by inheritance. As soon as Daniel was given the farm, he fired the entire crew because he just couldn't stand the thought of paying anyone. Because of that, he couldn't have as many different crops as they used to; they ended up farming just hey. However, the farm's profit increased by 20-fold.
Joe: Okay. So, that worked. I guess you can do that if you're on such good land that you can throw an apple core into the middle of it, and it sprouts a tree.
Todd: They went from making just a few hundred pounds a year to an excess of 3,000 pounds per year. Now, what do most kids do with their inheritances?
Joe: We learn from our legacy episode that most inheritances are lost within about three generations because parents do not communicate their wishes well enough, and they focus more on passing down family, businesses rather than values and game plans. So, when you told me that Daniel Dancer made more, it kind of shocked me.
Todd: Do you think Daniel had a mental illness or was he just a really good businessman?
Joe: From what you've told me so far, I am kind of inclined to think mental illness. Using hay for his shoes and eating a dumpling or two a day, that sounds just incredibly miserly and cheap. But firing his staff, that might be something that Amazon would do to tighten their belt. But then you mention collecting rain and soften bones to boil; I have very rarely seen business leaders walking by a Starbucks and just picking up unattended cups and swilling them.
Let's get into the kinds of mental illness that might be accompanied by penny-pinching. We're going to start with OCPD. This is a subset of a compulsive disorder, and OCPD is diagnosed when the obsessive part of it overcomes your ability to function and interact with others. So, if Dancer was just super miserly and cheap, that would have been fine. It probably wasn't a melt illness. When you start getting into territory where he's treating people differently like firing staff and impairing his function as a human, we get into the idea that it could have been a mental illness like OCPD.
For some more insight, some people with OCPD might have perfectionism to the point that it impairs their ability to finish tasks. For example, the carpenter that always measures but never cuts. Another symptom is stiff, formal, or rigid mannerisms. This means they must have things a certain way throughout the day. Another one is being frugal with money, along with an overwhelming need to be punctual. Next includes extreme attention to detail, excessive devotion to work at the expense of family or social relations, and hoarding worn or useless items.
As a reminder, OCPD and OCD are not the same things. OCPD is often confused with OCD, but people with OCPD have no idea that anything's wrong. With OCD, you know that you have a problem because obsessive thoughts are intruding, or the compulsion is intruding. So, it can be tough to diagnose. According to Healthline, between 2-7% of the population could have OCPD, making it one of the more prevalent personality disorders. Some other mental disorders that can make you go on shopping sprees or hoard money include bipolar disorder and ADHD. It can affect the way you shop and the way you spend money.
In summary, if you are penny-pinching because you enjoy the planning, genuinely like to save money, and it's not causing you stress or impeding your life, stick to it. You're doing fine. Being a penny pincher on its own does not mean mental illness, from what I can read. However, fighting dogs for thrown-out bones might reveal that you have a disorder.
Myth 2: Is being a miser unattractive? We all know that wealth is sexy, but is there enough cash in the world to outweigh the sexiness of stealing breadsticks from another table at the restaurant?
What would it have taken to get Daniel married? What would have taken to get somebody attracted to him? Furthermore, what do you think is the importance of having somebody who's financially stable? Overall, people generally want someone who is stable but will also spoil you occasionally. In short, people want someone who isn't afraid to spend mindfully and have fun without going too crazy. Now, I think saving money comes off as a great skill. But at what point is it a turnoff? Also, is there a gender bias? We're going to link to a publication written by Mary Hunt called Everyday Cheapskate’s Greatest Tips because they talk about that difference. Women sort of praise each other for getting a better price, but a guy who comes in and tries to split a dinner is seen as a turnoff.
If we are talking tribal man, our best survival comes from pairing up with someone who has a lot of resources, and this isn't just sexual. As for Daniel, he had a lot of resources as a farmer. He just was never willing to share it, to the point he allowed his sister to die to save his money. In summary, frugality is a good thing, but if you are trying to make the people around you feel comfortable and you want to be that tribal leader, you want to be the charismatic, wealth-display person. Even if you're not displaying wealth, you still want people to think that you're stable enough and that you are good enough at gaining resources.
In the end, if you turn off all the lights in your house and you live alone, that's fine. That's just saving money. If you clip coupons, also fine. But not when it's done in public in a way that signals to other people socially that you do not have enough tribal resources for them, that is seen as ugly. The author we referenced, Mary Hunt, wrote: "Always be a fragrance. Never become an odor. If you do things to save money that embarrass people, do them when it's not around them. Stay gracious, and you'll win them over eventually. Remember, you'll be the one with the money."
We talked in another episode about how charisma is power plus warmth. There's nothing quite as warming as sharing your bounty and letting somebody else sit at your dinner table. Food is actually a very easy way to display warmth and power, and we see that when we go out to eat. And this goes for men or women; if you're sitting on a mountain of food come winter, you're the hero and you're attractive. It doesn't matter what you did to get it. Whether you have a good revenue stream, you're a high-risk hunter, or if you did it by saving acorns, wealth is attractive. But if somebody is not willing to share their fruits, well, that's just dark.
For some more insight, Elizabeth McClintock did an American Sociological review about beauty and status. They looked at standards in general. What they found was that almost everybody, men and women, rated intelligence and humor interesting. They rated all these very high when trying to date someone. However, what they go for when they have a choice, they go for attractiveness. It doesn't matter what they said. They ended up trying to mate with somebody more attractive. Everyone's trying to hit the jackpot. They are going to aim for a movie star if they can get it. According to this study, and we found this out in our attractiveness episode, everybody aims out of their league and then adjusts down. So, a woman who is obsessed with attractiveness will find a man who is obsessed with attractiveness. Women who really like nice guys, they will get with nice guys. Whatever your highest value is, you're probably going to find somebody who puts that at their highest value too. And if you want to argue with us, go argue with the Atlantic. This all comes from an article called The Myth of Wealthy Men and Beautiful Women, and it is fantastic.
Myth 3: How much money can you save in the end? Do penny pinchers end up retiring to discount mansions, or would it have been better to splurge on improving themselves and thickening their revenue streams?
When somebody spends a lot, they're basically advertising that they are generous. A miser like Daniel never spent anything. Because of that, how much money can you save in the end living that way? Now, you don't have to be as extreme as Daniel. Let's use this in a more practical sense, like clipping coupons. Some shows feature people walking out with an entire cart of food for like $10. That might just be for TV entertainment purposes because the typical family usually saves between $5.20 to $9.60 per week doing this. Now with technology, people can apply coupons automatically while shopping. I'd say it’s worth it.
Other ways people save money are eating leftovers and cooking at home rather than eating out. If you stay in instead of eating out multiple times a week, your savings goes up quite a bit. Here's another one: turning off the lights. Energy and lights are pretty efficient nowadays, especially like modern bulbs. You're only saving about $200 per year by keeping all the lights off. But that is still savings, nonetheless. Even more, the average US household has around 40 light fixtures, accounting for about 20% of their annual electricity bill. So you can definitely save some cash if you turn off the unnecessary lights or when you leave a room.
What I put together from these articles and what economists recommend, if you want to save money, stop eating out and minimize your monthly expenses. However, the real chunks come out of your mortgage, your rent, your auto loan, your insurance cable, internet phone. If you can figure out which one of those you can cut, cut those instead of coupons, and you're going to save a lot more money in the long term.
But I want to push back on this right away; Make sure you still go out and have fun too. If you get too sucked into saving money, your social skills will begin to decay because you won’t be using them. If you still want to save and hang out with friends, do something free and fun like going on a hike or walk. All in all, saving is great, but I think there's a danger when you start cutting healthy things from your like, like a gym membership, date nights, etc., in fear of spending money. Give yourself a couple of days a week to go out, invest in yourself, and put saving aside. It is all about finding that healthy balance.
Final Thoughts
Sorry TLC, it doesn't matter how extreme cheapskates are; there's nothing wrong with them unless her behavior comes with consequences (i.e. until they're diagnosed for something like OCPD). Until then, it's very possible that their miserliness is just a result of living in the city without affordable housing.
Being cheap doesn't make you ugly to the opposite sex. In fact, wealth is seen as attractive. As far as online dating goes, earners tend to pair up with other earners, just like pretty people seem to pair off with pretty people, etc. But do you want to know what's ugly across the board? Being cold socially and keeping resources to yourself, especially during a social engagement. Feel free to be a miser when you're all by yourself. But if you expect to split the bill at the restaurant or everyone's pitching in for a friend's birthday, don't itemized receipt. Just quietly pay your share and recoup it later alone.
Want to save some real money? Limit how much you eat out, make a list of your monthly expenses, and then decide what you can cut without it hurting too badly. The lesson here is that Daniel Dancer could have been fine as a miser if only he’d been socially generous. If he hired back his old staff, spent money on his sister, and opened a cheap school, he would have been heralded as a hero for creating jobs. Daniel could have still been a miser at heart, too. After all, fighting dogs for bones, wearing hey, and eating dumpling soup but still being rich and generous, that's just being eccentric and wealthy. Who can't get behind that?!