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 "The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket." - Frank McKinney Hubbard. What Is Frugality? Being frugal means maximizing savings, finding and thinking of ways to save just a little bit of money here and there. Frugality in this thread does not mean refinancing a home loan or paying off a car to free up hundreds of dollars a month. You should absolutely go after those big wins first. You should have a good idea of your spending and have a solid budget. You should also work on increasing your income and progressing your career. For all of that check out this thread - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3256838. Instead this thread is about finding all of those little savings that can add up over time to a significant amount. When you've already made all the big wins in your budget, and you've already negotiated a raise at work but still need to save some money. Why Should I Be Frugal? Well for starters it can be a lot of fun! Instead of just buying your way out of a problem, adopting a frugal mindset means you approach something creatively. For example, instead of going out and buying Halloween costume for kids, you can use stuff around the house to make a costume. You get the kids involved in making something and having fun doing it, and you save a few bucks. In addition being frugal lets you truly get the best bang for your buck of every dollar you earn. When you make 20 changes in a month that save you $100, you've just added $1200 to your budget for the year with little to no effort. It also cuts down on a lot of waste. You're not buying stuff you dont need. You're reusing and repurposing items before they go into the trash. Ideas To Save For now I'll keep it simple: 1. Buy something for less when necessary. 2. Make something last longer. 3. Use something less or go without. And here are a few examples from my house. Things we've either already done, or started to do to save money: 1. Buzzcut haircut for myself. Saves about $20 every 6 weeks by having my hair shaved close. 2. Washing and reusing ziploc bags. We reuse these constantly until they wear out. Saves some money in the long run and keeps plastic out of the landfill. 3. Taking a gallon of milk thats been have used, and topping off with powdered milk. Saves about a $1.50 per gallon. Now you may think all of the above is extreme, dumb, a waste of time, etc. If you dont want to do any of the above, find something that works for you. For me these are all pretty painless things that are easy to do. And remember, the big wins are done at this point. You're trying to find 20 things or more that save you a bit of money. Other Resources This section to come. Its been a long time since I've looked up frugal ideas online, and things have changed to say the least. Also Mr Money Mustache is a turd, and I dont really want to link to him.
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Aug 22, 2021 15:51
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| # ? May 3, 2024 12:48 |
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Just to get the ball rolling I thought I'd post the impetus for me starting this thread. My wife and I just recently had our first child. We'd been planning on sending her to daycare fulltime in 6 months. Instead 2 sleep deprived weeks in, a part time position opened up for my wife. She'll now be going from full time to part time, 20 hours a week. Suddenly her take home pay gets cut in half down to $1600 a month. Full time day care was going to be $1800 a month in our city, by going part time we can get it down to $1200. So we're out roughly $1400 a month from where we thought we'd be. There is no way we can possibly make up for that loss of income by just being frugal. But looking at our spending and budget I bet we could that down to roughly $1000 a month, saving an extra $400 here and there. I'll do my best to document that here and see what we actually come up with for savings.
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Aug 22, 2021 16:16
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Buy Nothing groups (typically on Facebook) are really great, especially if you have kids. It's a constant stream of hand-me-downs and secondhand furnishings. In the last year we've gotten yard toys, adult and child sized clothing, power tools, and home organizing poo poo. And it's a useful outlet to pass all that stuff on too instead of sending it to the dump or Goodwill.
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Aug 22, 2021 16:52
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First time babyhaving family here. I’m a SAHD while my wife works full time so income is tight. We’re finding small ways to trim our food budget. We’re trying to aim for ordering takeout once a week tops, using every part of whatever animal parts we bring home (e.g. cooking chicken skeletons for stock), and eating more vegetables and less meat overall. Biggest no-brained cut backs would be our half dozen cases of LaCroix a week habit. I’ve also vowed to stop buying more books until my “read” pile is at least ten books deep and so far I’ve held to this rule rather well. How much to vegetable gardens pay off? I live in the middle of piney woodland so I’d have to clear underbrush and build planter boxes and install a bunch of anti-deer stuff on my property.
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Aug 23, 2021 16:24
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Veggie gardens are a great way to spend $200 to get 12 cucumbers and a couple bell peppers. At least in my experience anyway 
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Aug 23, 2021 16:45
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We have good luck with our garden for things like tomatoes, peppers, and especially lettuces and spinach. The startup costs are much higher though. I dont know how much money in the long run you save unless you really get into it and try to maximize yields as much as possible. For a buck in seeds though for example, we had fresh lettuce available basically from mid May to July when it got to hot. We'll plant them again in the fall and do the same as well. Cooking at home is definitely a great way to save money though! We're trying to limit ourselves to no more than $100 a month spending on restaurants or fast food which we're on track for this month. Another tip is to at least initially, write down what items cost at different stores in a price book. After a while you start to get a feel for what a good price is for an item, when to stock up if possible, and where to get certain things. Costco for us is always cheaper on things like gas, frontline for our dog, milk is usually about 10 cents cheaper, etc.
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Aug 23, 2021 17:46
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Gardens are fun and a pretty cheap hobby as far as hobbies go, but they dont payoff at the lower scale and at the higher scale you'd be hard pressed to use everything before it goes bad. There are always some local coops you can sell to, but even then, when you factor in the cost of your labor, you'll find out that the subsidized agriculture products you can buy in the retail market are a much more cost effective source of veggies.
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Aug 23, 2021 20:06
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Ok frugal choices this week so far. While more expensive upfront the wife and I have decided to go with cloth diapers. By my math doing this should save us around $2k while the kid is in diapers and even more if we can reuse for a second child. Got a start on Christmas gifts for family. I like to make a big batch of eggnog to give out as gifts. Got started today and will let age until December. It's a good cheap gift to give out and fun to make. Also cut our newspaper subscription down by removing Sunday print delivery. It only came 1/2 the time it seemed and saves us $10 a month roughly. We'll just use the online version instead with no loss to us.
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Aug 25, 2021 01:43
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Did you find used cloth diapers? My wife and I used Diaper Swappers to good success there. Bonus: they also make good replacements for paper towels when your kid has outgrown them.
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Aug 25, 2021 15:43
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Chin Strap posted:Did you find used cloth diapers? My wife and I used Diaper Swappers to good success there. I wish! My wife bought a bunch of news ones instead. Even buying new we end up saving quite a bit over disposable, especially if they survive for a hypothetical second kid. I'm only a few days into using them but they arent that much more of a hassle then disposable, so well worth the money imo.
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Aug 25, 2021 16:49
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We were going to use cloth until we found out we were having twins. Too much goddamn work  Amazon subscribe and save!
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Aug 25, 2021 16:53
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I don't know if this counts as frugality, but... 1. If you work for any large employer they likely have some of wellness plan which will give you credits towards your premium or prescription copays for doing basic health management stuff, like talking to a nurse to help manage a chronic illness, or getting a physical. These savings add up. 2. If you're buying things online install one of the many apps which auto-adds coupons.
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Aug 25, 2021 20:29
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Working on cutting down food costs for us in September. Looking back at past months we averaged $700 a month on just 2 people which seems incredibly high to me! The biggest culprit looks to be my wife going to the hippy co-op grocery store. Going to start hitting up Aldi, then Costco for some items, then if we need any one off thing going to the co-op store. That should save us quite a bit. Also looking into home making anything packaged, running the numbers on costs. Granola for example is $10 roughly for a big bag at Costco. I think I could get that cost down by about 1/2 if we make it at home.
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Aug 27, 2021 15:31
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A small accomplishment: Starting to prep for a move, was going through some books I was about to take to the thrift store, put them in a textbook buyback checker, ding, $60!
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Aug 29, 2021 20:09
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Upgrade posted:A small accomplishment: Nice work! I spent some time this weekend going through subscriptions to services and media we had and cutting back. Cancelled some auto renews on magazines we only casually read, cancelled some patreons to podcasts. Not a ton of savings but should add up to around $120 annually.
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Aug 31, 2021 15:07
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Forget Buy Nothing Day, I'm frugal all year round
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Sep 2, 2021 19:26
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Granola for example is $10 roughly for a big bag at Costco. I think I could get that cost down by about 1/2 if we make it at home. If you have a slow cooker or instant pot, that makes it very easy to cook dried beans rather than buying canned. Less to carry home, less packaging waste, and much cheaper.
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Sep 3, 2021 01:23
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Jayne Doe posted:
I only tried cooking with dry beans once and it was a disaster. Any good links or resources you’d recommend to read about it more? So far for foods well now be making at home we’ve got: Yogurt Granola Bread We’ve done all of the above on and off before for fun. Will now be doing to help save some money.
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Sep 3, 2021 02:47
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We invested in the new fangled pressure cooker. Beans are way simple now. Making yogurt sounds like a lot of time, and time is money, but if it's fun then heck ya. --- Food strat This may be rather bachelor, but it should be adaptable. This is more or less self developed, I don't know if this is similar to strategies used by the frugal types. Macronutrients: fat/carbs/protein. For this category it works well to shop by price per pound, or per calorie. Like, rice, pasta, flour etc. can be had for a dollar a pound. Potatoes can be less, but they also have water weight. Soy and canola oil goes on sale for a few dollars a litre. Beans seem harder to find at a reasonable cost. Is it because there's no market? (cuz people don't wanna mess around with making beans?). Pork* can get below 2 a pound, bone in chicken below 1, which seems absurdly cheap.*Meat- one of the cool things about frugality is avoiding overconsumption and lowering your impact generally. There's lots of good reasons to avoid meat, externalities, health, etc. etc. It's really cheap and easy though... Micronutrients: vitamins, fiber- fruit/veg/etc Comparing price per pound or per calorie is fairly meaningless here.For this category it works well to shop by price per item or serving. Like, a green pepper on sale is under a buck. Beets you get the beet and the greens, and they are often only a few dollars, versus the $5 cauliflower is probably less servings. Grapes can cost significantly more than oranges and apples by this metric. Upgrades: organic, artisan, etc. You probably want some things like extra virgin olive oil and brown rice for health reasons. You probably also want some treats. How much is the upgrade of this item vs that item? 50% more? ok. 300% more? Hmmm, how much of an upgrade is it? Having a basic framework like this allows you to quickly navigate all the sales and different stores pricing structures. They spend a lot of effort trying to confuse you, so gotta have your own system. Personally I don't do coupons, one cuz time is money, two cuz less access for corporate on my thinking is better, but three mainly I just don't want to. I know lots of people get good results using coupons. Sales are good obv but need to use a metric that doesn't shift constantly (what is 3 for 5 or 8 for 10 blah blah) so the price per pound thing gives you a baseline.
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Sep 3, 2021 20:22
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BaseballPCHiker posted:I only tried cooking with dry beans once and it was a disaster. Any good links or resources you’d recommend to read about it more? Buy an instant pot and it will pay for itself super fast. So easy to cook perfectly cooked beans. When I had an Indian style pressure cooker I was able to cook rice and beans separately but at the same time by using two trays stacked within the pressure cooker. I haven’t tried it with the instant pot yet. If anyone knows how to get the same setup going let me know. Was so easy to separately cook rice and beans at the same time.
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Sep 3, 2021 22:39
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I don't do anything fancy when I use an instant pot to cook dried beans - I just put beans + water in it (2 cups of dried beans, 8 cups of water) and set it to "high pressure". I only really eat black beans and chickpeas, so I only know the timing for those two (30min for black beans, 40min for chickpeas). I'm sure you can look up online whether other types of beans need to cook for longer or shorter periods of time. I usually let the pressure release naturally rather than doing a quick release. I'm single, so I usually freeze all but a reasonable portion for later use. I haven't tried cooking two things separately (i.e., rice and beans).
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Sep 3, 2021 23:16
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Jayne Doe posted:I'm single, so I usually freeze all but a reasonable portion for later use. Also a single person here, and using my freezer has saved me so much money on groceries. You can freeze so many things that you might not think about, and avoid things going bad/stock up when there's a good sale/be more intentional about using up odds and ends from the pantry or fridge. If you're trying to cut back your grocery bill, getting familiar with freezer techniques is a great place to start.
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Sep 4, 2021 00:26
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An Instant Pot is also amazing for making chicken stock or chicken bone broth. Asian markets may have chicken bone carcasses really cheap per pound. Or check with your local butcher, it might just be going into the trash otherwise. https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-make-rich-flavorful-easy-chicken-stock
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Sep 4, 2021 02:48
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Numbuh 212 posted:Also a single person here, and using my freezer has saved me so much money on groceries. You can freeze so many things that you might not think about, and avoid things going bad/stock up when there's a good sale/be more intentional about using up odds and ends from the pantry or fridge. If you're trying to cut back your grocery bill, getting familiar with freezer techniques is a great place to start. Yeah, I went to the restaurant supply and bought a case of delitainers (since they're cheaper than tupperware at ~20 cents per and it's not a tragedy if they get stained/have to be tossed) , and portion out and freeze leftovers from every meal to take to work for lunches. Huge savings over going out to lunch, and much less food waste.
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Sep 4, 2021 02:51
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For you baby havers-tryout homemade wipes if you are doing cloth diapers. Some cut up tea towels and water work fine for most all wipes. We still have a grip of them 3 years later after an initial like $15 investment.
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Sep 6, 2021 04:08
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Jayne Doe posted:I don't do anything fancy when I use an instant pot to cook dried beans - I just put beans + water in it (2 cups of dried beans, 8 cups of water) and set it to "high pressure". I only really eat black beans and chickpeas, so I only know the timing for those two (30min for black beans, 40min for chickpeas). I'm sure you can look up online whether other types of beans need to cook for longer or shorter periods of time. They have a table on their site that breaks this down really well: https://instantpot.com/instantpot-cooking-time/#tab-id-3
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Sep 7, 2021 23:55
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Pinus Porcus posted:For you baby havers-tryout homemade wipes if you are doing cloth diapers. Some cut up tea towels and water work fine for most all wipes. We have gone the cloth diapers and wipes route and so far so good one month in. I think when we did our initial calculations using cloth diapers saves us about $500 a year, and even more if they last for a 2nd kid. The cloth wipes have worked really well, no complaints from me on that. Looking at our spending so far for the month we're already at $161.15, all of which was from a big costco trip that I did. Hopefully we stay under $300 for the month, but it'll be tough.
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Sep 8, 2021 13:39
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I had to get more bird seed, a non frugal luxury I still want to have. Talked to the guy at the feed store. He basically said that black sunflower seeds will be good for 75% of backyard birds, not having dried fruit, peanuts, mealworms, etc will just cause you to see less nuthatches and woodpeckers for the most part. So when I do need seed about every 2 months or so my costs by switching to just sunflower seeds will go down by 3/4! Thats only like $20 a month every 2 months but I'd still count that as a big win.
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Sep 14, 2021 14:57
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Early potty training, like putting them on as soon as they can sit up, saved me a ton on diapers. And growing sunflowers is an easy way to get tons of seeds if you have the space and inclination. They are super easy to grow.
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Sep 16, 2021 06:59
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moana posted:Early potty training, like putting them on as soon as they can sit up, saved me a ton on diapers. Is this a thing? My son is almost 7 months old and can sit up on his own for a good bit, but isn't able to pull himself up yet. Are you saying he could start potty training now? How does that work?
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Sep 18, 2021 13:33
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"Elimination communication"
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Sep 18, 2021 15:41
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You can work on holding him on the toilet whenever you do a diaper change, first wake up, get ready for bed, really any of the classic kind of "potty times.". It can start creating the connection in their head, and hey, any time it works is one less diaper!
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Sep 18, 2021 23:10
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Yep, around 7-8 months is when we started. You get to know when they are going to poop (for me, it was right after I breastfed), and just stick them on the toilet topper - use this instead of a potty and you can also get them used to the flushing noise that apparently terrifies most toddlers. I found that if I pushed her shoulders back a little, she would clench her gut to stay upright and bam, poop, she gets a big cheer and associates pooping with the toilet. She never got used to sitting around in her own filth, never had problems with rashes like most toddlers do. We only changed a handful of poopy diapers after she turned 1, and she was completely out of daytime diapers by 2. Saved so much money and waste. I am baffled that people wait until 3 or 4 to start training. That is the exact time they are starting to rebel and tantrum and hate being told what to do! When they are little little they want to do everything you tell them and it's so freaking easy.
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Sep 18, 2021 23:28
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We potty trained by 18 months using the stick him on the potty topper thing whenever seemed a normal potty thing. Also, bribed with some M&Ms to get him to tell us he needed it. Still have a few accidents at 3 and 1/2, but haven't cleaned a dang diaper in 2 years. I would have pulled my hair out if I was just now potty training! Now he just gets stubborn when he's playing and doesn't want to stop, but even then we can frequently get him to go. Screw just getting started with it!
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Sep 18, 2021 23:54
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When does rebeling and tantruming taper off? About to turn 40, is it soon?
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Sep 19, 2021 20:48
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Well this month has been a complete disaster frugality wise. I was hoping to keep our grocery bill at under $400. We're at $551.97 for two people and a baby. Special tax assessments came in, that was $300. Renewal for my online training and certifications came in that came out to $596. Just a complete shitshow of a month. I really thought we'd be able to make it on one income but that hasnt turned out to be the case quite yet.
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Sep 27, 2021 19:02
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Reviving this thread hoping to funnel in some new ideas to save money being cheap. I eat a lot of processed foods and am trying to cut back to save money. I currently eat a lot of granola bars as quick energy and after doing some research it seems like it's not that expensive to make your own. I'm a little worried they won't turn out as good, I don't know what they put in Clif bars to make them taste so good while still giving me tons of energy for the next few hours, but hopefully some trial and error will get me there. And a lot of nuts. Also have started using new cleaners that are said to last longer while costing less. Currently I use a lot of the Blueland products (spray cleaners, handsoap, detergent) and while I can't tell if I'm saving money yet it does last at least as long as storebrand. I'm going to try snapping the detergent tabs in half because I haven't noticed much of a change compared to liquid detergent. If I can have one package last twice as long, why not?
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Aug 1, 2022 09:49
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Glad to see this thread come back. Some frugal things I’ve done recently include switching from Verizon to mint and trying to buy things used off eBay to the greatest extent possible. For example we needed a new stock pot so I set up an eBay alert for demeyere brand cookware and after a few weeks I got a brand new pot for 55% off msrp. Check out the goon with spoons subforum for delicious and cheap recipes. There might be one for granola bars. The goon recipe for simple granola is awesome. Edit: here are some good places to buy used stuff online: -clothes: eBay,poshmark,ShopGoodwill -outdoors: geartrade. Backcountry.com sells their returns on geartrade for cheap. Can also buy from individuals. -furniture: check out your local art auction houses. If you’re patient and have access to a truck/van you can snipe amazing furniture that no one wants to deal with moving. -other: see who the big liquidation auction house is for your area. I’ve picked up some nice gym equipment from fitness centers that went bankrupt. grenada fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Aug 1, 2022 |
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Aug 1, 2022 13:23
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Hey I totally forgot about this thread, glad to see it back. We make a lot of our own granola, or did in the past. Costco has enough cheap enough that we've been buying it from there lately. Here was the base recipe we used: https://www.cookiemadness.net/2015/03/18/granola-made-with-condensed-milk/ And could then add protein powder, chopped dry fruit, etc on top of. Frugal change I made this week. I found some poor desperate college students to be new rovers and dog sit. They both seem like they have a good head on their shoulders, and will also house sit while were away. Kennel costs go from $60-70 a night with taxes to $30!
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Aug 1, 2022 15:53
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| # ? May 3, 2024 12:48 |
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We did a proof of concept budget and decreased our grocery bill to $300 for two people, a toddler, and a baby. Got pretty close to meeting it, we took a little from the misc. spending that we didn't allocate and were under budget for other fields. After two months of it, it looks like stocking up on lean meats at Costco for $150-$175 and then supplementing with cheap produce selections like zucchini, roma tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, and frozen vegetables at ~$30 a week is manageable. Spices are key for making meals not boring, Goldfish is our go-to, but only, toddler snack, and we rarely buy treats. Going out is limited to $100 a month, and this could be cut out if we needed to.
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Aug 1, 2022 21:01
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