I definitely think the frugality can get baked in for a bunch of reasons. Also, I'll often do stuff myself because the "administrative overhead" is worse than just doing it. I had a problem with my oven and called 5 places. 3 didn't service my area and 2 didn't service my brand. I ended up just buying the part even though I would have preferred to have someone else deal with it, but I'm sure that wouldn't even occur to a bunch of people.