Frugality is Hard to Afford

Households commonly utilize strategies that provide long-term savings for everyday purchases in exchange for an increase in their short-term expenditures. They buy larger packages of non-perishable goods to take advantage of bulk discounts, and accelerate their purchases to take advantage of temporary discounts. We document that low income households are less likely to utilize these strategies even though they have greater incentives to do so. Moreover, results suggest a compounding effect: the inability to buy in bulk inhibits the ability to time purchases to take advantage of sales, and the inability to accelerate purchase timing to buy on sale inhibits the ability to buy in bulk. We find that the financial losses low income households incur due to underutilization of these strategies can be as large as half of the savings they accrue by purchasing cheaper brands. We provide causal evidence that liquidity constraints inhibit the use of these money-saving strategies.