Coworkers that say you are missing out on so much by living frugally

[APowers]

I get a lot of good-natured ribbing-- "do you ever even want to buy anything?" "Do you even eat?" "You don't have TV? 'nope.' Do you watch movies? 'not really, we don't even HAVE a tv.' Wait, what?"-- but overall, I feel like there is a level of respect, because our level of "we don't spend money" is impressive, and the general underlying response/attitude is "wow, he's frugal and saves all his money, how does he do it?"

[RootofGood]

To me, the part that is a struggle is the subtle implication that by not following the herd mentality, you're somehow being ... disloyal?  that you're disapproving, and that you're also cheating, somehow, by not being in the same boat and validating the same choices as everyone else.   From a practical standpoint it's easy to feel confident and ignore the pressure when you know that what you're doing is mindful and purposeful, but it's socially difficult to get beyond the dichotomy of choice; so many of us are wired to believe that people who do not mirror our choices disapprove of us.

I had the president of the company tell me this once.  He felt like I was always trying to one up them and "work the system".  By making sure I take advantage of all the benefits the company offers (as part of our compensation package!) and even working to make the benefits better (with no added cost to them, things like making the 401k kick ass instead of sucky).  They knew I maxed out the 401k even though I was one of the lower paid employees in the company.  He's still working and I'm retired.  :)