Thorpeing

The act of attempting to save money but actually incurring more overall expense and then justifying the additional time, money, and resources spent with backward logic and citing intangible benefits.

Kevin wanted to use less natural gas to heat his new home and elected to build a wood burning fireplace. In saving an average of $4.25 a month in natural gas, he ended up Thorpeing it by wasting an entire Saturday every year driving to the woods to cut down dead trees, costing $40 in gas and another $7.50 to power the chainsaw as it spewed carbon emissions into the otherwise pristine mountain air. The chimney sweep only costs about $50 every other year and the fines for burning wood on red-burn days in the polluted valley add up, too. But hey, the whole endeavor takes him back to an earlier day and age when the world was more innocent and a man could feel good about a hard days work.