Basic Trope: A Scottish character is very thrifty and careful with their money.
- Straight: Scottie is careful with his money and never buys anything unless it’s a bargain.
- Exaggerated: Scottie takes only things that are free and NEVER buys anything if he can help it.
- Downplayed: Given two functionally similar products, Scottie will prefer the lower-priced one instead of the one with better quality or more features, if they are mutually exclusive.
- Justified:
- Scottie used to be very poor (or still is) and so he's used to a spartan lifestyle.
- Scottie is a devout old-school Presbyterian who considers wasteful spending a sin.
- Inverted: Scottie is a lavish spender who is always in debt because he buys more than he can afford.
- Subverted: Scottie says, “I’ll only buy a wee bit here,” but then is shown to buy several very expensive items.
- Double Subverted:
- But it turns out these items were on sale and thus not as expensive as they normally would be. Scottie stockpiles them so he doesn't have to buy later.
- Short term, that is. Due to their longer lifespans, the expenses on the pricy items are effectively $5 per year, while the cheap ones effectively cost $75 per year.
- Parodied:
- On his deathbed, Scottie refuses treatment because it's too expensive.
- Scottie takes extraordinary joy in Mundane Luxury and literally cannot fathom Conspicuous Consumption.
- Rather than buy something in his hometown, Scottie drives a hundred-mile round trip to buy the same item sold at a lower price elsewhere ... but his gasoline expenses exceed what he saved buying the original item.
- Zig-Zagged: Scottie grows his own food and goes shopping no more than once a month and always at the secondhand store, but he decides it wouldn't be so bad to buy his wife Alice a nice anniversary gift whether expensive or not. He likes it so much that he starts buying similar expensive things, but then he realises he doesn't make enough money to pay for all of them. He is forced to return them and gets his money back.
- Averted: Either the Scottish characters are no thriftier than the others or else there are no Scottish characters at all.
- Enforced: "We need to make sure people know this character is Scottish, so he has to be thrifty."
- Lampshaded: "Why are you so thrifty, Scottie? Is it because you're Scottish?"
- Invoked: Scottie feels he needs to honour his Scottish ancestry by being frugal.
- Exploited: Mr. English frames Scottie for petty crimes that require the payment of small fines, knowing that Scottie will be incredibly annoyed without being much worse off.
- Defied: "These guys think all Scots are supposed to be cheap, eh? So I'll be as profligate as you please, just to mess with 'em!" "Scottie, you are aware that Scots are supposed to be contrarian, too!"
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Played for Drama: Scottie's thrift costs him in some way:
- A) Financially: The things he buys are so cheap they keep breaking down, so he keeps having to repair or replace his purchases. The result is that he spends more.
- B) Physically: The cheaper item is inferior and kills or injures him when it malfunctions.
- C) Emotionally/Socially: Being cheap alienates his friends/leads him not to have any in the first place.
- Implied: Scottie is the only character who is never seen at the big shopping centre.
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