<p>What little things do you do to save money or just to see if you can?</p>
<p>This week I made a pot of beef soup with the bones remaining from the Christmas Prime Rib. A couple of weeks ago, I got three days of meals from a Perdue chicken roaster - dinners and lunches. Roast chicken, faux Chipotle burrito bowls, chicken pot pie. (We are not good consumers of leftovers. It has to look like a new meal!)</p>
<p>I buy oatmeal from the bulk bin at the health food store rather than buy Quaker Oats at the grocery store.</p>
<p>DS’s shared house:</p>
<p>“If it’s yellow, it’s mellow. If it’s brown, it goes down.”</p>
<p>Currently, one male, four females.</p>
<p>I used to work with a bookkeeper who turned the used paper rolls (calculator tapes) on her adding machine over and used the back side.</p>
<p>I’m frugal, but that lady had me beat.</p>
<p>I know way too many able bodied people who pay for gym memberships and pay more for trainers and classes at the gym, and then pay for someone to do yard work, to shovel snow, to clean their homes, etc.</p>
<p>I the opposite of frugal. I keep trying to tell myself rich people don’t spend money and that is why they have it. </p>
<p>I used to do a good job with coupons but not so much lately.</p>
<p>I have three large shelving units in my garage that are filled with canned goods, dry goods and paper goods…I buy what I can in bulk when on sale or I have a decent coupon</p>
<p>I installed a clothesline, do my laundry early in the morning so it can dry in the sun , even this time of year to avoid using additional gas and electricity</p>
<p>Sweep sometimes instead of vaccuum</p>
<p>Save a lot of plastic containers , primarly from cottage cheese to fill with soups I make to freeze …my freezer looks like the dairy section of grocery store</p>
<p>Anyone catch TLC’s Extreme Cheapskates show? These people are uber-extreme…the guy dumpster diving for the wife’s anniversary presents, including some bedraggled roses, had us in stitches! Maybe he’s saving up for the divorce attorney?!</p>
<p>But I actually have done some of the things those folks do like wildcrafting (when I’m 100% sure of what I’m picking) and bartering with friends for services like snowplowing, auto repair/maintenance, haircuts. I often check craigslist and freecycle and have picked up some great new/like new things that way. My biggest regular moneysavers are using coupons with sales to stock up and trying to make my house, and lifestyle, as energy efficient as possible. I run the dishwasher only when full, bake multiple things at the same time, have small infrared heaters which allows us to keep the furnace set at 60, and have installed all kinds of energy conservation devices like CFL bulbs, window coverings, and low flow showerheads. My electric bill still doubles whenever D is home though…</p>
<p>Yes, I caught about 10 minutes of one episode the other day. The husband served up what I believe was goat heads for dinner! He also poured cheap wine from a carton into a “nicer wine bottle” too fool his wife. Somehow, I think his wife knows this trick, and I would think that she could taste the difference too.</p>
<p>The best way I know how to cut bills is to cut back on my impulse buys. Whenever I pick up an item not on my list and put it in my shopping cart I ask myself if I really need it. It usually goes back on the shelf. Recently, I started using the library rather than buying books which were my most frequent impulse buys. </p>
<p>I’m not a very good planner like sk8ermom. And I can’t figure out how coupons save me money when I usually get bulk at Costco or buy the store brand.</p>
<p>Bring a sweater when you come over to my house. Thermostat is set at 62. I did feel guilty about the cat and dog, so they have heating pads in their beds. I make my own spray cleaner with water, ammonia, alcohol and a drop of dish liquid.</p>
<p>Boy did my dog love her heated bed.</p>
<p>Buy lots of our clothes at Goodwill.
Try shoes on for size at the mall then come home and search for a better deal online.
Never pay full price for shoes/clothing.
We have a set amt. monthly clothing/shoe budget and a set weekly budget for household spending. When it’s gone, we don’t spend any more that week.
Any books bought come fr. Goodwill for .99 each.
Buy store brand paper products and cleaning supplies.
Check the grocery ads each week for sales.
Don’t subscribe to NetFlix.HBO,etc.<br>
Rent movies for $1 at the Redbox. If going to the movie theater we go before 12:00 on weekends for $5/tkt.
Used gift cards given to me to buy gifts for others.
DH and I do all our yardwork
Don’t trade cars often. Dh’s truck is our newest at 7 yrs. old. My car is eleven yrs. old as is S2’s truck. S1’s truck is twelve years old.</p>
<p>I watched the Cheapskate show for the first time this week. I couldn’t believe the family with all those kids using the “toilet cloths” and tossing the used ones in an open bucket in the bathroom. The guy who went around asking for other peoples’ food in restaurants was really weird too. He looked as if he got plenty to eat w/out taking food from others.</p>
<p>I can be very frugal. I am an old hippie and it is hard to lose those skills. They just keep coming and helping. My dear parents for all their funds, knew how to do it as well; they were turn of the century, last one, babies. They also knew how to spend. It is a choice. Find what you love and do that. The rest is immaterial. Completely.</p>
<p>I love manicures & pedicures but not the $40-50 cost. I started doing my own mani-pedis, but always messed up when polishing my fingernails and toenails. So, I now go to the salon just to get the polishing done (I do the soaking, scrubbing, lotion, etc. myself at home). I get charged $10 for the professional polishing, and my hands & feet look great. I also still feel a bit pampered after visiting the salon. BTW…This is my first CC post…hi everyone!</p>
<p>Packmom and I share the same sentiments!</p>
<p>No Prime Rib here. Too pricey.</p>
<p>My big thing is yard sales. “Season” starts here around mid-April and goes to mid-October. Granted, I use probably a gallon of gas each week driving around to the sales, but it is great way to spend a morning outside (my convertible top down of course), to learn the ins and outs of my own and surrounding towns, to meet new people, and to find awesome bargains. You never know what you may find, but do this long enough and it will break you of “real” shopping forever. Especially because a lot of stuff that people sell at these sales have never been used. My best finds: a set of 8 gorgeous water goblets from Crate & Barrel, still in the original box (with the wedding card still inside!), with a retail price of $80 (price tags were still on each glass) for $8; two never used LLBean backpacks with retail price of say $40 each for $2 each; and a wooden tri-fold room divider screen that I use in my office with retail well over $100 that I got for $35 (and was able to deduct because the yard sale was benefitting Juvenile Diabetes!). My DD and I found a brand new name brand panini maker for her apt for $5. That’s just a sample. You never need to buy any holiday or baby or kitchen or esoteric cooking item new because I promise you will find them everywhere. Ditto books which I buy at yard sales, read, and then donate to our local library for them to resell at book fairs, and so on. I have many items at my house which people always admire … and only sometimes will I admit where they came from. Try it. It’s fun!</p>
<p>The biggest frugal thing this year was losing 47 pounds. I am able to wear clothes that I wore in my 20s, I don’t need to eat as much to maintain my weight and we’re buying far fewer prepared foods and more raw ingredients to prepare at home. This will hopefully cut down on medical expenses though I didn’t really have much in the way of medical costs before. We also no longer buy juices and soft drinks and just drink water which probably saves quite a bit of money per year.</p>
<p>There are a lot of other ways that we save money but many of those are generally known.</p>
<p>Our Jeep is 9 years old. H t-bird is 19 yrs old & his truck is 48 years old.</p>
<p>I am also still on my starter husband & living in our starter house.</p>
<p>I read an article many moons ago in a magazine (Money?), highlighting frugal people/families. The ones I remember:</p>
<p>1) One guy had bought a house, but refused to buy any furniture. He had one kitchen chair, and didn’t think he needed anything else. He had never traveled more than 20 miles from where he was born in his entire life.</p>
<p>2) A family that was so cheap their kids were embarrassed to have other kids over, and the parents wouldn’t let their kids go over to other kids’ houses because they didn’t want them “contaminated” by seeing other people with TVs or whatever. As a result the kids had no friends and were almost totally isolated.</p>
<p>And I thought at the time, this should not be held up as something admirable, something to strive for or to be emulated. These people are mentally ill.</p>
<p>I think extreme frugality in many ways is the flip side of hoarding.</p>