One of us is unclear on what the other is saying. I'm not sure which. I'm not tying my object, I'm including a tied scalar as a member of a hash (object). Behind the scenes, the scalar is an object (as is any tied variable), and calls methods for STORE and FETCH, which I would expect to be very comparable to SET and GET.
We're not really tightening our belts, it just feels that way because we're getting fatter.