penny wise and pound foolish

Idioms  

1. Stingy about small expenditures and extravagant with large ones, as in Dean clips all the coupons for supermarket bargains but insists on going to the best restaurants—penny wise and pound foolish. This phrase alludes to British currency, in which a pound was once worth 240 pennies, or pence, and is now worth 100 pence. The phrase is also occasionally used for being very careful about unimportant matters and careless about important ones. It was used in this way by Joseph Addison in The Spectator (1712): “A woman who will give up herself to a man in marriage where there is the least Room for such an apprehension ... may very properly be accused ... of being penny wise and pound foolish.” [c. 1600]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

penny wise and pound foolish

That has proven to be penny wise and pound foolish.

From Washington Times ● Sep. 10, 2020

Given that individual stocks are highly unlikely to match the performance of an index fund over time, that’s the definition of penny wise and pound foolish.

From Slate ● Jul. 13, 2016

That approach could be penny wise and pound foolish, however.

From Science Magazine ● Jun. 4, 2015

I try to just because in general most people are far too penny wise and pound foolish to objectively realize they are fretting over nominal amounts when it comes to tipping.

From New York Times ● Feb. 26, 2010

In reality, as far as one can judge, the War Office were penny wise and pound foolish.

From John Redmond's Last Years by Stephen Lucius Gwynn