I know someone who immigrated from a former communist country. She talked how they lived in extreme poverty and now despite having great job and substantial savings, she pretty much lives the way she learned.
For instance cooking the same food her parents used to cook from whatever they managed to find, only wearing used clothing.
When her phone was stolen and she had to buy a new one, she literaly cried for a week thinking that for the lost money she could have food for months.
The bad side is that I remember she berated her then boyfriend because he bought potatoes in the store that had them 20p (like a quarter in the US) more expensive than the one little farther from her place. Can you imagine being screamed at for 20p? He eventually left her and needed to attend therapy.
I perfectly understand her, I am in similar position despite being in top 3% earners in Czechia I will refuse to buy overpriced goods I know they are cheaper in other shop. I have 4 years old phone, wanted to upgrade for really long time, but I don't see the value in new one worth spending that much money for flagship just because I want compact phone with good camera and battery (Pixel 4A was closest price wise, but battery and punch hole killed it) despite I could buy easily 4-5 flagships from my monthly income.
Is there something wrong though with keeping your spending habits low instead splurging on stupid things and risking potentially you will have to adjust them, if you lose job? I find it better to just keep them pretty much stable no matter how high is the income. Though I would not touch second hand clothes, but would not have problem to buy second hand phone and I consider people buying brand new cars crazy, you will lose lot of value just after leaving the dealership.
It probably helps my wife is (stereo)typical Chinese who will reuse everything and has problem to throw away anything, that's even more extreme than me not buying overpriced goods when I know they are cheaper elsewhere (I'm actually supporting price competition this way, sadly most of the people are lazy and don't give a F about few cents causing inflation for everyone). I love especially expiring food with 60-70% discounts, finding best possible deal makes me probably more happy than products itself.
This is totally reasonable. However, I found that going out of her way to find a product marginally cheaper to be counter productive. I was unable to explain to her the concept of alternative cost. For instance spending extra 30 minutes to save £1-2. I mean there is nothing wrong with that if you don't have anything else to do and can be a form of entertainment, but these things pile up and that shows in her looks - constantly tired. She could have spent that extra £1-2 and used gained time to do something else like relaxing bath, listening to music or reading a book.
I mean if she doesn't do it during her work time it's difficult to calculate cost of free time vs savings, personally I don't see it that way either, it's just thing I have to do and whether my grocery takes 20 or 30 minutes makes really no difference, those few extra minutes spent on checking cheap (expiring) things I could not use elsewhere.
I don't really think she would literally spend extra 30 minutes to save 1 GBP, seems like exaggeration and I also doubt she is really allocating time to those activities. She can be constantly tired more likely because she is burned out (my case, not taking any vacation in years besides bank holidays when they often bother me anyway) than because of time spent on saving money.
This is for me one key to understand this effect. I was a small kid in the 70ies, I didn't have any idea about gas prices and how much a driving license costs - I didn't even know that my toys did cost something - but I grew with parents who would scold me whenever we left some light on for no reason, or a door open for too long when it was cold outside, or opening the fridge for too long.
I remember I was witnessing the exact opposite behavior in the American TV shows of that time. The "traditional" food battles were in particular not entertaining at all, but rather we were disgusted by the huge waste of food - this, although we were a middle class family that certainly had less money problems than your friend.
To this day I still turn off unused stuff and close doors as soon as possible. And I try not to waste water too. And I check the price-per-weight rather than the unit price. Despite the fact I could afford to not give a huck to all this.
