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I don't think thriftiness is what you are looking for. It's more of a good sense of the return on marginal dollar spent along with knowing what is the return that you want.
I know a "extremely thrifty" 8 figure net worth individual whose behaviors and spending I can comment on. He has excellent clarity of mind on how much anything, any random good or service ough to cost, and won't pay a dime extra simply on the principle of not wasting money. This reads externally as thrifty, but I think as a comment below me mentions, is exactly one of the traits of many successful businessmen, knowing what is worth what and not wasting money even if one could afford it. That trickles down into his business and is one of the main reasons his business is cash positive and profitable in an insanely saturated and high variance field.
I think it is an immature culture that assigns more weight to the mean/deviation of money people spend on things as opposed to how much value is obtained.
On us mortals who don't have 8 figure net worths. I'm speaking about upwardly mobile young professionals.
I have friends with a fraction of my income who have better cars, clothes, gadgets and go out drinking and partying and to fancy restaurants every week. They live paycheck to paycheck and in debt. Whilst I cook most of my meals at home, wear thrifted clothes, still live with my parents, (to save rent and because they are aging) and take a vacation maybe only once a year.
I can tell you the price of any randomly chosen item from the store and how much I would/would not pay for it. They can't. In fact they are not even bad with money in that they spend it recklessly, they literally don't have a model of it good enough to predict how much something ought to cost and if that's worth paying or not, its grim really. And then they complain about being "poor".
I jive with the people that don't have a model of spending money. I certainly don't. If my wife and I earned significantly less we'd be screwed. Luckily our money out is far less than our money in. We have a financial advisor that nags us when our savings account starts getting to ridiculous levels. I have an economics degree. I intellectually know that we shouldn't have boatloads of money in the savings account. I just hate figuring out what to do with it.
We take two or three vacations a year. Sometimes pay for home renovations. Eat out once or twice a week. Own a modest sized home. Most of my entertainment is dirt cheap though. I like reading, I like video games, I like discussions on TheMotte. I'd find it hard to legitimately spend more than $300 a month on these activities. Something like $30 a month is more common (I even sorta pay for TheMotte through a patreon donation).
I do sometimes wonder how much more money we'd have if we were actually careful and diligent about it. But then I think of the effort involved and sort of shudder.
I remember a few years back having friends that make similar amounts of money to me and my wife and they were complaining about money issues. I was mostly left scratching my head. How did you spend that much money? I knew their rent, I knew they didn't own a car, I knew we ate out a similar amount, I knew they also took two to three vacations a year, sometimes less. I thought they might have well hidden gambling addictions. Or were sending a bunch of money to their families.
Set up automated contributions into the s&p 500. This is the greatest return on 10 minutes of effort you will ever have in your life.
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I have friends like this too. I was talking to a friend of mine recently. Her and her husband make about 50% more than I do combined. They've never had a budget, they have no idea what the other one makes, what gets saved, anything. They have no investments to speak of, just an anemic 401k and a savings account. My wife has a friend very similar, with a 3 income, multi generational household that might be bringing in 80-100% more than we do, which similarly has no savings. Nothing. Nada. Truck breaks down and out comes the credit card to pay for the fix.
I've budgeted, saved and invested my entire life. I've never had a bonkers salary, just a relatively regular middle class income (for my area), that's admittedly rather high cost of living. I have a single income household with my wife staying home and raising our kid. I turned 40 last year, and my net worth hit 7 figures, partially thanks to diligence and 20 years of saving, partially due to getting very lucky on several things. Although the effects of that luck probably accounted for only 20% of that accumulated net worth.
But frankly, it seems that my wife and I are the only people we know who live like this. We don't know anyone else with so much as a written budget, much less aggressive thriftiness and savings. It seems most people just thoughtlessly live hand to mouth, money comes, money goes, who even really knows where.
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