What does “Sparfuchs” mean in German?

A Sparfuchs is someone cleverly, almost craftily frugal — sparen means “to save,” and Fuchs is “fox,” an animal German folklore has long cast as sly and resourceful. Call someone a Sparfuchs and you’re saying their thriftiness is a kind of cunning, closer to “savvy penny-pincher” than the flatter English “cheapskate.”

In this clip, a teenager moving out on nothing but child-benefit payments (Kindergeld) proudly calls herself a Sparfuchs while budgeting döner kebabs down to the euro — the word carries genuine admiration here, not the mild insult “cheapskate” often does in English. The feminine form, if needed, is Sparfüchsin.