"tightwads” [...] people who have trouble spending their money. [...] tightwads do not scrimp because they lack money. They are not any poorer than spendthrifts (people who overspend); [...] Instead, they’re afraid to spend money that they do have.

[...] Damon Young [...] calls this feeling “post-brokeness stress disorder.”

[...] “There are people who have … ‘money-hoarding’ tendencies,” she told me, “where they have tens of thousands of dollars sitting in a savings account”; they fear that “something’s going to happen, and it’s all going to be taken away from them.”

Or they worry that once they start spending, they won’t be able to stop—that “one drop of the bucket turns into the faucet running constantly,”

One of Elliott Jaques’ most significant contributions resulting from this project study of a manufacturing company was the recognition that social systems in the workplace function to defend workers against unconscious anxieties inherent in the work. To the extent that such defenses are unconscious, the social systems are likely to be rigid and therefore uncomfortable; but because of their role in keeping anxiety at bay, they may also be very resistant to change.