<p>There’s a difference between being frugal and being cheap. Frugal is good and cheap is bad. But the definition of each is up to the beholder. I’d marry a frugal man, but wouldn’t even date a cheap one.</p>
<p>The definition I’ve heard is </p>
<p>frugal is when you are careful about what you spend on yourself</p>
<p>cheap is when you are careful about what you spend on others</p>
<p>I’ve recently found freecycle.com - I needed a new shredder & posted to freecycle. Soon I had myself a used shredder. Works fine. And cost zero. I’ve seen people snag computers, sofas, and even laundry detergent on freecycle. I’ve been clearing out my house and rather than driving to goodwill, I post on freecycle. Most things have found a home. I love freecycle!</p>
<p>My neighbor wanted to get rid of the stone mulch put down the previous owners of her home and replace it with shredded bark mulch. She found out it would be expensive to have the stone mulch removed and taken away, and so she advertised “free” stone mulch on craigslist and all these people soon came and removed the unwanted stone mulch.</p>
<p>I recycle my own kitchen scraps to go to my worm compost bin. Nothing gets thrown away except meat, etc… It turns into black gold, great for my garden. I get coffee grin from Starbucks for free and throw in my worm compost bin. It’s good for the environment all around.</p>
<p>I rarely buy any new book now unless my library does not have it, I make it a habit to borrow from the library, great for the environment, use less paper and storage space. I also donate back to the library books that I don’t want to keep.</p>
<p>people are so funny- I have crap I have been holding onto for some misplaced reason that someone might need it again- but in a house that is smaller than 1000 sq ft, where we have lived for over 20 years, it was getting to the point where we couldn’t get anything that was new unless we got rid of some of the old stuff.</p>
<p>I felt guilty putting it out for the Salvation Army, since it wasn’t in great shape and I felt wasteful taking it to the dump, but I put it out on my parking strip with a free sign on it, and it was gone before I went to bed!</p>
<p>( now I just have to put some more out there)</p>
<p>We just don’t buy anything we don’t need. The rest is automatic.</p>
<p>We pay off the full balance on the credit cards every month. Thus we pay $0 in credit card interest every year.</p>
<p>I only buy cold cereal that is on sale. I ain’t paying four dollars for a box of flakes no matter how much I like them.</p>
<p>I use coupons only for things that I was going to buy anyway. They aren’t going to trick me into buying something I didn’t want by giving me a discount.</p>
<p>When I was in grad school I was so poor that I used to shower in the dark to save electricity. I no longer do that but I do turn off the lights, TV, computers, etc. when not in use – something that females (W, D1 & D2) are apparently physically incapable of doing.</p>
<p>I don’t own an SUV. I drive a little 12-year old Japanese car instead.</p>
<p>A friend of mine from years ago was the cheapest person I’ve met. Her husband owned a toy company, yet she would buy videos for her daughter, pirate them, bring them back to her husband’s factory to be re-shrinkwrapped, and return them to a store where they cost MORE money, so she’d actually turn a profit! When she told this to me proudly I was stunned. I asked her not to tell me things like that any more…I just couldn’t be friends with her if she did…ugh.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that I am exceptionally frugal, but by buying most items when they are on sale at my grocery store, I save a tremendous amount of money. The discounts when name-brand items are on sale at my store are incredible.</p>
<p>I shop at a Big Box store for stuff like detergent, paper towels, tp, etc.</p>
<p>I stopped buying my cup of coffee in the morning at the train station and instead make it myself before I leave the house.</p>
<p>I almost never buy new books any more, unless they’re “special.”</p>
<p>After 20 years in the same house, with one S gone and the other about to leave, I’m trying to be a “net exporter of goods.” I’m donating everything that’s usable to various tag sales around town – for the rugby team, for the church, and so forth. (I recognized years ago that if I hoarded the stuff in anticipation of my own tag sale, we’d need a bigger house to store all the stuff. And in my book, tag sales are NO FUN to do.)</p>
<p>I hit the outlet stores hard when I need clothes. I can’t remember the last time I paid full price for clothes for myself.</p>
<p>I only buy used cars with low mileage. I bought a six-year-old Mercedes with only 37,000 miles from a co-worker. Cost me $17,500 and drives like a dream.</p>
<p>But I don’t scrimp on education – and I don’t scrimp on food.</p>
<p>“My H, doesn’t need his hair cut- he wears it in a ponytail,”</p>
<p>That’s my dream hair style. But my wife and son are against it.</p>
<p>Growing up, my dad taped little index cards beside every single light switch in the house. He had written on each, “TURN OFF THE LIGHT”. Funny thing is, I walk all over this house every single day turning off lights after H and the kids have left for work/school.</p>
<p>I save the water from rinsing vegetables and use it to water the potted plants. Keep all the soap ends and mush them into a washcloth until they truly are all used up. Don’t scrimp on food at all, but don’t go out to restaurants much at all. We are big-time savers, resisted the “keeping up with the Jones” thing and might be one of the few with no pool, the boys have to share bedroom, cars are with us so long they are family members, and, best of all, my kids are apparently label-blind. They don’t care anything about clothes or where they come from as long as they fit and feel good.</p>
<p>We had a thread awhile back about reusing ziplock bags and washing aluminum foil. My D. is very frugal. One time when we were on a road trip, we overslept and missed the free breakfast in the hotel lobby and had to go to the IHOP. I heard about that for 350 miles.</p>
<p>Ahh, I contributed to the “wash your aluminum foil” thread. When the kids were little we used powdered milk, drank “earth juice” (aka water), made our own bread, etc.etc. and followed the “Tightwadder’s Gazette” philosophy. (Most bang for the buck and borrow/reuse/delay purchase/stockupcheap, less is more). It’s very earthfriendly! I’m too lazy to do all that now, but compared to most people, we are considered very thrifty.</p>
<p>Back in the day, I was never sure it was cheaper to bake bread then to buy it, by the time you figured in the cost of heating the oven. Now? No question. A loaf of not very good whole grain bread is $2.50 a loaf.</p>
<p>I love being frugal. Craigs list and freecycle are a gold mine. My time is precious, hours at my job are arduous, and the less I spend, the less I have to work, whether now and esp. in the future. But some things are worth spending on, a rare good meal out with my kids, music lessons, museum fees, travel, good live performance, Sunday NY times. I buy at thrift stores, garage sales and sale racks, eat what is in season, bike and hike for entertainment, watch my energy conservation with an eagle eye, avoid fast food and chi chi coffee drinks. We all need to eval what is worth spending on, what brings joy. Of course it helps that my friends are down to earth and I wear scrubs to work!</p>
<p>In regards to the above, I did decide that some obsessive things are not worth my time, washing plastic bags being one, having garage sales being another. I’d rather donate stuff and use the tax deduction.</p>
<p>Secret to bread - you bake 6 loaves at once, then freeze 5 of them. Kneading that much dough take two sets of arms. And you buy the 1lb bag of yeast, then store it in the freezer so it lasts a few years. (You don’t have to use 6x the yeast when you make that much bread. Just about 2x) ;)</p>
<p>I turn off lights all over the house – no one else seems capable of doing that! I keep the thermostat below 68 in the winter, and we wear sweatshirts or sweaters. (This tactic doesn’t really count, though, since neither H nor I can stand to be hot.) I listen to radio stations on the computer, since that’s usually on, rather than turning on another electronic device. I drive carefully – both to avoid any tickets or accidents and to improve gas mileage. I clean the house, H takes care of the yard, and we fix things ourselves whenever possible. I hate to pay anyone else to do something I can do myself. We have energy efficient appliances, and I only run the dryer to the point where things are damp. It’s easier to hang clothes and let the wrinkles fall out.</p>
<p>Here’s something interesting I heard on TV recently. <em>Don’t</em> bother turning out the lights if you are going to be coming back to the room within five minutes. The energy it takes to turn the switch back on is more than the energy used during that time!</p>