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My fave "extreme cheapskakes" episode was the NJ family trying to sell their house to move to a bigger one. I have no idea why, because they had almost no furniture. The toilet had no handle, you had to use pliers to flush it. The shower head broke, so they attached a empty soda bottle with holes punched in the bottom to the shower head. The shower head is a $5 fix, some water companies will give you a low flow one for free (the ultimate in cheap AND green)! The realtor pointed out spots on the carpet and said it needed to be replaced. You have a few options as a seller in this situation: 1) New Carpet! (2-4k) 2) Saying "the new owners will probably replace it with hardwood anyway," cleaning what you have, and leaving it alone otherwise. ($40) 3) Buying random carpet samples, cutting out the stained parts of your carpet, the gluing the random samples in! ($20) Of course they chose #3. Of course nobody bought the house.
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Jun 11, 2014 16:41
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There was a show on flipping houses where this young guy bought a ~$500,000 house somewhere in California to flip. He "upgraded" the house by replacing fixtures with their modern (but very cheap) equivalents. Plastic fixtures in a craftsman cottage. They looked terrible. He spray painted the laundry room sink with gold spray paint to "improve" it. These might not have been problems in a cheaper neighborhood, but he was selling in a pricier neighborhood and looking for a six-figure windfall. The monthly cost of holding the property was high enough that he didn't fare very well and had to settle for a lower price after many months of paying the mortgage. I can only imagine what happened to people like him when the market bottomed out, because as I recall his ordeal was before the housing/credit crisis.
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Jun 11, 2014 17:18
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That reminds me... Are there any followups to the TV shows that were on a few (6? 8?) years ago when kids right out of college were buying $600,000 half-townhouses (not even the whole thing, just one side of it)? My girlfriend at the time watched a lot of them while I read, and I saw single people buying $500,000 houses when their job was working at the GAP or some other clothing store.
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Jun 11, 2014 17:49
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RommelMcDonald posted:Really? Nobody remembers the highlight of the Japanese woman's episode where she rubs soap against her rear end in a top hat because she's too cheap for toilet paper? Errr, I don't know how it is in Japan, but there are plenty of countries where this is exactly what everybody does. In such places using toilet paper and leaving it at that is considered nasty.
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Jun 11, 2014 18:26
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My favorite was the guy who reuses tea bags and floss by hanging them all out to dry on a clothesline in his house. Actually, it was the guy who would take his beaten to hell truck down to the river to fill a barrel with water so he could "save 25c a week"
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Jun 11, 2014 18:31
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lizardman posted:Errr, I don't know how it is in Japan, but there are plenty of countries where this is exactly what everybody does. In such places using toilet paper and leaving it at that is considered nasty. It's a woman who outright owns a $100+K condo in New York City which she managed to pay off in two years who refuses to buy toilet paper. She straight up brags to the camera about what a waste toilet paper is, so it's not like it was staged or edited or anything.
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Jun 11, 2014 18:51
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RommelMcDonald posted:It's a woman who outright owns a $100+K condo in New York City which she managed to pay off in two years who refuses to buy toilet paper. She straight up brags to the camera about what a waste toilet paper is, so it's not like it was staged or edited or anything. ...did she buy it in the 70s? (Condos here cost like 800k+  )
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Jun 11, 2014 18:53
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I don't know, it's been a while since I've seen it. It's on Netflix, go watch it if you're that curious.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:03
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The Japanese lady who dumpster dives, won't buy new clothes, etc is the first episode of the series I believe. It's on some airlines regular TV show rotation. I just saw another clip of the lady who makes her boyfriend take, "Navy showers". She also reuses(?) boiled water (that has pieces of ??? in it) for cooking and then when they're done eating spaghetti/salad she goes and puts any leftover sauce back into its containers.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:20
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Those people have mental health issue; for whatever reason I think they're a subset of people who were considered for Hoarders. I like Prince$$ better, I don't feel as bad making fun of those people.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:22
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A girl I work with told me the other day that she was going to go crack the windows in her car 30 minutes before her shift ended. I asked "is your air conditioner broke?" "No, I just like to save money" It was 90 degrees outside and she lives 5 minutes from work.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:24
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BTW according to this: http://nypost.com/2012/10/16/she-loves-ew-york/ Kate's apartment is in Harlem and cost her $200000.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:25
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That's a cheap rear end apartment for NYC. Even for Harlem. You're typically looking at closer to half a mill for most starter apartments in Manhattan.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:36
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quote:“I’ve always been frugal, but it was when I was laid off in the dot-com crash that I became extreme,” Hashimoto explained. I imagine that her unemployment during the dotcom crash must have been pretty severe to provoke this type of behavior. Yeah, anyone can get fired at any time, but that's what an emergency fund is for. Make it extra big if you're that worried about it. She's probably lucid enough to realize that if she gets laid off again nobody is going to hire her crazy rear end, hence the $250/month total spending. She could probably retire/get fired today and be fine for the rest of her life.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:37
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Strong Sauce posted:BTW according to this: http://nypost.com/2012/10/16/she-loves-ew-york/ What Kate Spends Per Month: On food: $15 On clothing: $0 On toiletries: $0.17 a month on toothpaste On her $200,000 condo: $237 She puts into savings: $4,000 Into 401(k): $1,000 Goal: $250,000 in savings by next year or so 
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Jun 11, 2014 19:40
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I saw that, it's just mind boggling. Assuming that she reaches that goal and not getting too in the weeds on interest/inflation and buying power and all that, $250k is enough to sustain her ~$250/month outlay for like 83 years.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:47
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Barry posted:I saw that, it's just mind boggling. Not to mention she very likely has a large 401k.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:53
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Barry posted:I saw that, it's just mind boggling. She won't need all that savings when she gets a foodborne illness and is too cheap to go to the hospital.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:55
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EugeneJ posted:A girl I work with told me the other day that she was going to go crack the windows in her car 30 minutes before her shift ended. To be fair driving 5 minutes in a moderately hot car with no AC isn't really that bad. I do it all the time, but it's more about my completely unfounded concern that starting up the AC compressor for such short distances will wear it out prematurely.
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Jun 11, 2014 21:28
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LogisticEarth posted:To be fair driving 5 minutes in a moderately hot car with no AC isn't really that bad. I do it all the time, but it's more about my completely unfounded concern that starting up the AC compressor for such short distances will wear it out prematurely. The girl said she was doing it to save gas
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Jun 11, 2014 21:42
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How can a human survive off of $15/mo in food? I can't even imagine that that would be enough calories.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:04
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Wickerman posted:How can a human survive off of $15/mo in food? I can't even imagine that that would be enough calories. Dumpster diving.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:06
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Her company may well pay for lunches. My company has communal breakfast and pays for lunch and dinner during the week, if I wanted to do rice and beans on the weekend I could probably swing $15.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:08
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EugeneJ posted:The girl said she was doing it to save gas Which it will, if driving at low speeds. Increased drag from having your windows rolled down really only kicks in if you're over 50 mph or so. Presumably since she's only five minutes from work she's not hitting highway speeds for that long. I guess you can argue that the savings are negligible but that's a personal decision. I grew up with vehicles and houses without AC, and still use fans as long as possible in the summer, so spending 5-10 minutes in moderately uncomfortable temperatures is totally normal to me. vvv Which is appropriate since I'm killing time at work on my phone! 
LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 22:12
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All these posts about what was probably a quickly made up excuse to take a break away from her loser coworkers.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:24
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Spermy Smurf posted:That reminds me... Are there any followups to the TV shows that were on a few (6? 8?) years ago when kids right out of college were buying $600,000 half-townhouses (not even the whole thing, just one side of it)? Sort of. They didn't do a specific series, but instead followed it on the news when the loans they received were part of the greatest economic collapse since the 1930s.
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Jun 11, 2014 23:42
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quote:So I just got off a call with my boss and HR. I'm officially unemployed. I am a single parent with a mortgage ($3300), two car payments ($1060) and three kids to take care of, off virtually nothing. I'm in Seattle Washington, and online researching my options but I have no clue how to do this and the best I can find is less than 25% of my income. I have little to nothing in the bank due to paying off a whole slew of medical bills and there will be more of them coming. I am either even with my house or underwater due to the economy, as well as with my vehicles because I drive so much for commuting and work so to "just get rid of them" isn't an option. My credit is around fair, mostly due to medical bills so not as many options there as I'd like. Any advice in the right direction is helpful. I know I won't be jobless forever, but in the meantime how do I afford everything, not ruin my credit and not lose my life until I find a new job?
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Jun 12, 2014 01:25
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Sounds like bankruptcy time to me.
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Jun 12, 2014 01:39
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Why does a single parent need two cars?! Holy gently caress, those car payments. Holy gently caress, THAT MORTGAGE PAYMENT?!
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Jun 12, 2014 01:39
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Also I like how she is somehow underwater on her mortgage in one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. I'm in Seattle and the current real estate market is absolutely bananas. Houses worth buying regularly go 10-20% over asking within 24-48 hours, multiple offers, frequently all cash and no contingencies. I'm assuming she must have had some sort of decent income to take on a $3300/mo mortgage and $1000/mo in car payments. I'm just continually amazed by people that make good money living paycheck to paycheck because of repeated bad decisions. Guinness fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 01:43
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The title of the reddit post was "From $115k to $0" so yeah decent income. Not enough to sustain $4400 in fixed costs per month.
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Jun 12, 2014 01:55
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Trilineatus posted:Don't worry, I hang my clothes to dry too. The main focus is that if I remember properly (and god knows I watched that episode at least two years ago) is that she showers with her clothes at the bottom of the shower and used the soap that drips off of her to wash them, and then the lack of dryer means no barely hygienic hot tumble to make me feel better about how gross that is One of my grandfather's old Air Force buddies actually swears by this (as a travel tip, not a lifestyle thing).
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Jun 12, 2014 02:16
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Don't think she needs two cars anymore for 'commuting and for work' when she doesn't have a job, eh?
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Jun 12, 2014 02:35
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Pompous Rhombus posted:One of my grandfather's old Air Force buddies actually swears by this (as a travel tip, not a lifestyle thing). If I'm staying at a hostel in south east Asia and rinsing the mud off my hilly clothes, sure. But these are her daily work clothes that she also dumpster dives in, and never thoroughly washes any other way. Also, I am going to be BFC's new SloMo once I get my first paycheck from my new job and start a thread. I've never had this much money and my knee jerk reaction is to BALLER OUT
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Jun 12, 2014 02:38
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Barry posted:I saw that, it's just mind boggling. You could stick $250k in any number of relatively safe investments and make way more than $250 a month.
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Jun 12, 2014 02:53
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poo poo just based on the 4% rule couldn't she pull like 10k a year from it? Bad With Money
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Jun 12, 2014 03:24
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FrozenVent posted:What Kate Spends Per Month: That is... quite something. I guess if it makes her happy?  I think I might spend my weekend watching this show and cringing. My partner finds some of the things I do to save money a bit quaint, but he earns more than me so my love of spreadsheets, bringing sandwiches to work and buying in bulk is a bit alien to him.
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Jun 12, 2014 10:59
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olylifter posted:Sort of. They didn't do a specific series, but instead followed it on the news when the loans they received were part of the greatest economic collapse since the 1930s. When did this happen? If it was recent, it definitely didn't make the news here in the US. Thanks for the smartass reply. I was asking if they went to these people who were pressured into buying houses on the show and did a "where are they now" thing.
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Jun 12, 2014 13:48
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FrozenVent posted:What Kate Spends Per Month: Dammit BFC, which forum do you think this is. Here I'll pick up the slack: I can't believe she spends money on toothpaste. If you just watch the coupons you should be able to get it for free every month. 
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Jun 12, 2014 14:23
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Folly posted:Dammit BFC, which forum do you think this is. Here I'll pick up the slack: We've long determined that being bad with money goes both way. It's the Goldilock effect, you have to be juuuuust right. Dude buying $200 underwear? Bad with money. Dude making GBS threads in a bucket? Bad with money.
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Jun 12, 2014 14:31
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