How Penny Wise and Pound Foolish?

If you are said to be penny wise and pound foolish, you are extremely careful with smaller, inconsequential amounts of money, but you lose any gains you might receive from those savings on extravagant larger purchases. In other words, you are stingy with smaller amounts, and you are wasteful with larger amounts.

What does it mean by penny wise pound foolish?

: careful about small amounts of money but not about large amounts —used especially to describe something that is done to save a small amount of money now but that will cost a large amount of money in the future The plans to cut funding are penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Where does penny wise and pound foolish come from?

The term penny wise and pound foolish was coined by Robert Burton in his work The Anatomy of Melancholy published in 1621. Burton was a scholar at Oxford University, primarily in the field of mathematics. He wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy as therapy for his own chronic depression.