How would you describe someone who fritters away money on inexpensive, trivial things, like coffee, but refuses to spend money on expensive, necessary things, like a decent new laptop (buying a lousy one instead)?
Is there an expression? I want to say "penny foolish and pound wise", except that "pound wise" is inappropriate here, as skimping on the large outlay is a false economy.
How about small spender?
From The Free Dictionary:
big spender: someone who spends money freely and in great amounts, especially on nonessential things or events
By extension, a small spender is a person who spends money freely -- after all, the person is by definition a spender -- but only in small amounts on nonessential things or events (ref. the OPs "fritters away"):
small spender: a person who spends money freely but only in small amounts, especially on nonessential things or events
One would consider such a person -- who only spends in small amounts -- foolish for "skimping on large outlays" when skimping "is a false economy".
It's actually "Penny wise, pound foolish" which means, according to Dictionary.com, "stingy about small expenditures and extravagant with large ones."
The phrase was coined by the 17th century English writer Robert Burton, in a long preface to his book Anatomy of Melancholy, in which he describes the various types of contradictory and hypocritical behaviour tolerated and condoned by society. The equally pithy expression "rob Peter, and pay Paul" comes from the same text.
