8 Ways To Tell If You're Cheap

1. You Avoid Necessary Costs – If it's time to get a new pair of pants or shoes because your old ones are ripped, torn, broken or stained and it's purpose is no longer useful, get some new ones. I'm sure the thrift store has a lot that are still in good shape.

2. You Never Go Out – If you keep denying your friends and family when they ask you to watch a movie with them or go out to lunch, you can suggest a more economical alternative. Not having money is one thing but don't completely shut out your loved ones just because you don't want to spend money.

3. You Cheat The System – So you paid off your car and you're thinking about dropping insurance completely? This is a huge risk but you have convinced yourself otherwise. It might seem logical that you will save money for a while but something horrible can go wrong which would more than offset the cost of savings. This is irresponsible, illegal, dangerous and it's simply not worth it.

4. Your Time Isn't Worth It – If Tiger Woods himself mowed his lawn every Saturday morning instead of paying little Jimmy next door to do it for him an exchange for $10, then Tiger Woods is doing the what only cheapskates would do which is: Give up money for time consumption. Let me give you an example. Say you're install heating and air conditioners for a living but it was your turn to make dinner until you got an unexpected project on the weekend. If you make dinner, you lose out on $800, if you get a chef for a night, it's $90 and keep $710 and feed your family plus money for other expenses. This is, of course, an example.

5. You Choose Quantity Over Quality – Those shoes you got at Wal-Mart or Payless are in style and they look great with your new outfit but they don't last very long because they are made with low quality components and put together poorly. You don't care though because they were only $10. Maybe you aren't cheap but you never really did the math so let me break it down for you. Say you bought a new pair of running shoes for $10 that started to hurt your feet after 3 months but then you bought $35 shoes that lasted a whole year and still keep your feet comfortable. That means in one year you would buy 4 new $10 shoes to make up for 1 new pair of good quality shoes and you spend more than with the higher quality shoes.

6. You Lie – Have you ever went out to lunch or dinner with a friend and their wallet mysteriously went missing as soon as the check arrives? We'll if you are that friend who stiffed another just to escape a couple of bucks then shame on you!

7. You Never Tip Or A Poor – Servers, waiters, busboys, bar tenders, valet parking, delivery men and others all accept tips for their services and they depend on you to provide this crucial part of their income in exchange for their services. Now if you have been miraculously unfortunate to never get good service, that's one thing but to never tip or under tip is something that of a cheapskate.

8. You Take Extreme Advantage – When you're at the movies, do you ever grab a large soda out of the garbage can just to use the one-time refill instead of buying your own? Well congratulations! Your cheap! Have you ever been to a fast food restaurant and took excess napkins, plastic utensils and ketchup packets for your own home? Congratulation again!