Another Advantage of Frugal Living

Frugal living has always been a good idea. I know modern conservative Christians do not think so. For example, in a previous blog entry, I documented that one leading conservative group thinks that the way to show God that you love him is to waste as much fossil fuel as you can. I wonder what these Christians think about Jesus and His frugal way of living. God made gold and silver, but Jesus showed how much He hated God by never seeking any. Throughout the ages, many religious people (of diverse traditions) have seen frugality as a way of respecting the created world and its creator. Not so modern conservative Christians. Let them hate Jesus, and let them hate me, for our frugality.

But there is another advantage of frugality. It seems that neither the government nor corporations feel obligated to fulfill their contractual obligations unless you sue them. Here are the corporate examples. I signed a contract with Sears for siding on my house. They cashed my check then repeatedly put off the work, until I told them that I was ready to hire a lawyer; then they began the work. The computer on which I am writing came from Best Buy, back when we naively trusted it, and in less than a year it is crashing. I also bought a camera from them last year; twice in a row, they had to fix it, the second time to correct damage they had inflicted on it while repairing it the first time. I had to threaten legal action to get them to replace the camera. A camera and a computer are staples in my work. Anything that is not fundamental to my work I will simply not purchase from a corporation. Farmer’s markets? They are pretty good.

The government example is an agency everyone knows and despises: the IRS. We all know we have to pay taxes; but the IRS is a corrupt agency. They were recently in the news for targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny on tax-exempt status applications. But there is a bigger problem. We all know that they take months to send refunds back. But during those months, they provide no information about what is going on. You can check on their website, but if you do click on “Where’s my refund?” you will almost certainly get a message that says that no information is available. I had to write a letter to the White House (not quite a legal threat) before the IRS checked up on it. It turns out that they were working very very very had to give me a bigger refund than I had requested, which is great news, only for those months I was waiting, I had no idea if they had even processed my return. I had a delivery confirmation, so I knew they had received it; but I had no way of checking whether they had subsequently misplaced it. Recently, I received a letter from them explaining to me why my refund was delayed, but not explaining to me why they had kept the process a secret for so long. All we want is to know what is going on, and for IRS to not be a totally secret organization reminiscent of Soviet days.

A refund is not a privilege that we are requesting from the IRS; the refund amount is the amount of money by which we overpaid on our withholding. It is our money, not theirs. So now I have greatly reduced my withholding; I plan to pay taxes each March (I do not wait until April) rather than to expect a refund. I can be absolutely sure the IRS will cash my check the moment they receive it, and within a day or so it will show up on my bank website. The ousted IRS director loudly proclaimed, “We provided horrible customer service.” But the news reports focused on a minor aspect of this ineptitude. What about the millions of us who waited for our refunds, and kept in the dark while we were waiting?

None of us can do anything about the fact that the IRS is corrupt, other than to minimize our withholding. But there is something we can do about corrupt corporations. We can simply purchase as little as possible. Quite simply and obviously, the more we buy, the more opportunity there is for corporations to take our money without delivering acceptable goods and services. Anything that seems even remotely unnecessary or luxurious, I will reject it. I occasionally eat out, but only when traveling or for special occasions, such as my daughter’s birthday. Even on those rare occasions, I often get temporarily double-charged for the bill.

If rejecting most luxuries sounds like what Jesus said to do, that is more than just an interesting coincidence. Let the conservatives decry me as evil for my opposition to large corporations. Let them call me unpatriotic if they like. But if they call me unchristian, they should take a second look at the Bibles that they wave in the air without reading.