Anyone who has long showers while there is a drought is a bit of a prick really, then by the end of it you should be used to having short showers.
I love the whole bit in California where you gotta take short showers, not water your lawn, not use water when brushing your teeth, etc. when 80% of the state's water is used for agriculture, an often internationally exported industry. GFY Cali. Yes I do love me some almonds but GFY
Another frugality hack:
take good care of your stuff.
An example: I bought a new bicycle. And we have in our complex an opportunity to leave it outside and an opportunity to put bicycles in the cellar. Outside it gets rusty faster and the probability of it being stolen is higher. But it takes additional effort and 5 min of time to put it in the cellar. I have a bad habit of leaving it outside that I am trying to break.
That's a good one Lapka. I get really cross with my bf if he leaves garden tools out. I'm now stuck with some really dodgy secateurs due to my good ones going missing
Gardening tools are no joking matter! A decent pair of secateurs is well worth the extra money and going back to a crappy cheap pair is much like someone going from a stradivarius to a cheap Chinese knock off. I love my gardening tools and my pop taught me to always return them in a clean state to their home when you're done with them. I have rust on one of my weed pullers and that's inexcusable! If the death sentence ever gets brought back it should be for irresponsible handling of garden tools!
I love the whole bit in California where you gotta take short showers, not water your lawn, not use water when brushing your teeth, etc. when 80% of the state's water is used for agriculture, an often internationally exported industry. GFY Cali. Yes I do love me some almonds but GFY
About a year ago I got rid of the small plastic wastebasket in the bathroom.
I got tired of cleaning it and no matter what you do bathroom ick builds up
and becomes one with the plastic.
So when I went grocery shopping I would grab a few extra of those small paper bags
that are intended for ice cream, they fit squarely in a corner are the perfect size for a bathroom waste container .
I could change them out about every week to 10 days or so. But even at 10 days this
requires over 35 bags per year and thats a lot of pilfering.
So recently I started lining the bags with those plastic grocery bags that everyone
has way too many of. Now I can change the inner bag out every 7 to10 days and
change the main bag about once a month or so, long as I dont keep accidentally pissing on it haha.
The biggest spots for large gains in frugality are:
1. Housing. If you are owning a home, you really don't need to buy the maximum amount that the bank qualifies you for.
2. Cars. As others have noted, buy used and be smart about it. You don't need a new car all the time. If you do buy new, drive it for a long time (like over 10 years).
3. Food. Use coupons, check out circulars, don't eat out much, etc.
And find a spouse who shares your goals. If you can be DINKS, all the better.
Around here metal scrappers would be lined up to take it whole. Wouldn’t last 30 minutes on the curb. But good job saving $25.
Must be region dependent. I left it on the curb for 24 hours before trash day and got no takers. Probably could've done a CL Curb Alert but wasn't really looking for a bunch of degens to window shop my garage.
The biggest spots for large gains in frugality are:
1. Housing. If you are owning a home, you really don't need to buy the maximum amount that the bank qualifies you for.
2. Cars. As others have noted, buy used and be smart about it. You don't need a new car all the time. If you do buy new, drive it for a long time (like over 10 years).
3. Food. Use coupons, check out circulars, don't eat out much, etc.
And find a spouse who shares your goals. If you can be DINKS, all the better.
cars are the number one reason why americans are in so much debt
My grandparents went thru the depression so goofy stuff like that was standard for the olds. The people from that time would keep anything and everything that could be reused cuz you never know if you can get a replacement.
+1 to this. My granddad had some kind of a tool for easily picking golfballs out of a stream. Whenever he walked across the stream when playing golf he would pick one out if he could see it. When he died he had about 200 golfballs in a bucket in his garage. We'd obviously think "Why not stop when you get to 20 or something?" but of course someone like him who'd lived through the depression and particularly the second world war would easily by able to envisage a situation under which golf balls would simply not be available for an extended period.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VincentVega
If this is what you have to do. Again, this to me would be defined as "poor".
Right but when you continue after you no longer need to do so it's frugal. Poverty is a good teacher of frugality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lapka
I generally would define frugal not as necessary "not spending money", but more as "spending money according to each others value system".
The trouble with this is that the Kardassians also spend money in line with their value system.
Even if it is an expert, it's an expert in a "one-night-stand" kind of cooking that makes you feel good while you eat it, but doesn't necessarily make you feel good in the long term.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Very Josie
Restaurant meals have tons of fat and sugar added them to make them more appealing to Lol USA#1.
This.
Quote:
Originally Posted by THAY3R
lol @ the idea of Olive Garden making their own pasta. Punk probably thinks spaghetti is a plant or something
It is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Very Josie
There’s takeout Chinese on every corner where I live...most options are deep fried and all options are delish, in my opinion.
Authentic Mandarins wouldn’t eat the shiat on a bet because they know what real Chinese food should taste like.
Apparently in Hong Kong there used to be a restaurant called the "English Chinese" which served Chinese food in the English style primarily for expats who missed the "real" Chinese food they were familiar with from home.
Chinese food depends a lot on the region (as European food depends on the part of Europe), but one of the biggest differences that struck me on my short visit is that they don't serve everything on a massive thick bed of rice like in Chinese restaurants in the West and also how everyone was thin (including the white people in HK). That's what probably pushed me to finally eat low carb.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Very Josie
Have you ever had a homemade spaghetti sauce that’s been simmering for 6 hours with about 25 different ingredients in it?
Not six hours but it's definitely true that the longer you leave them the better they are, which is why it's hard to do them in restaurant because of the economics.
Yesterday I did a British thing we call "toad in the hole" (and finally got it right) which requires being cooked in an oven for 45 minutes, including the last 30 minutes without the oven being opened. Pretty difficult to do and serve fresh and warm to the table in a budget restaurant environment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ElSapo
Showed up at the library today. Not my usual fare but I'll give it a go. Thanks.
I read a much earlier version of "Your Money or Your Life" when Joe Dominguez was the main author. Not sure how much it's changed since then but if it hasn't changed much then I'd say don't let anything that modern readers might interpret as part of the "culture wars" put you off getting the most you can out of the tools provided.
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One thing not mentioned so far. I make cider (i.e. the alcoholic drink) at home. Primarily for taste/health/natural product reasons but once you've got the equipment it saves you money on supermarket prices. In countries with high alcohol taxes this would be an even bigger factor.