<p>OP, not very frugal. I went from very big spender(spent every cents I made) to a non-spender(don’t spend much). I’m not good at frugalizing but do watch out for big ticket items. For items that are smaller than $50, I couldn’t care less. However, I don’t like to waste food so I will try not to throw things away.</p>
<p>I am reading all these great frugal strategies and feel like a slacker. I thought we were pretty frugal but I see I am still an amateur. I shop for fresh produce at the Korean supermarket nearby because the veggies and fruits we regularly eat are sometimes less than half the price than at the local supermarket. We buy the third or fourth generation “next big electronic thing” after the price has gone down and the bugs have been worked out. I keep my eyes peeled for clothing sales and the odd treasure at the thrift store or garage sale. We eat mostly in, and use promotional coupons for when we eat out. Until we had to shell out for D’s college tuition and expenses we were able to put away a tidy sum every month in savings. I guess the secret to being frugal is to buy only what you need, decide that you don’t really need a lot of stuff, but that the stuff you do get has to be good enough quality that you don’t have to buy it again for a while.</p>
<p>Posting for the generic/bulk/Costco vs. coupon question - I don’t have a Costco in my area so can’t comment on their values, but the tricks to couponing are to use one of the gazillion “coupon match-up” sites (many have the words frugal, moneysaver, or mom in the name), buy name brand products that are on sale and have a coupon, and take advantage of rewards/promos. It’s often very easy to get these products for free and, depending on store policies, one can even “make” money by having the overage applied to other purchases. For example, it’s common for Rite Aid, CVS, and Walgreens to have reward bucks on certain products that are on sale and have current coupons. If the sale price is $2 on a product that’s regularly $4 and there’s a $1 reward and a $1 coupon, that $4 bottle of bodywash is going to cost $1 but will give you a dollar to spend on something else you buy, which makes it free. Many grocery stores double, and sometimes triple, manufacturer coupons so combining coupons with sale prices results in big savings, especially if you can buy the smallest size available (ie. the $1 size toothpaste instead of the $3 size) the coupon/sale will allow. One needs to know the store policies, mentally shift from the normal “unit price” comparison to “net pricing”, and accept that this may not be the most environmentally friendly way to shop due to the extra packaging. Then again, if you like having “fresh” product vs. using the jumbo size for several months, it works out nicely!</p>
<p>I spend very little time on the coupon thing - maybe 2 hours on Sunday if there are good sales - but I don’t stress about it as there are always deals to be had! I generally don’t look at ads or cut any coupons until I see the matchups done by someone else online. There are tons of links to print coupons online and I can also “load” coupons onto my grocery store card (which has a gas rewards program) so that’s great for weeks when I’m too lazy (er, frugal) to go out and buy the paper! </p>
<p>Fwiw, my monthly grocery budget is less than what my too-busy-to-coupon sister spends weekly (same family size) but I have a full pantry, freezer, and shelves full of non-perishables so I don’t have to shop weekly and can usually supply whatever she has forgotten to buy! I’m also able to keep my college kids stocked up which they love as it keeps their grocery budgets low. For December, I spent $149 for $458 worth of groceries before sales/coupons. I still have $15 in rewards bucks left to spend, earned a gas discount of .90/gallon for 20 gallons, am due a $20 prepaid card as a rebate, and will get 5% cash back for using my credit card. That brings me down to $90 net which is roughly 80% off retail.</p>
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I have a septic field. Unless it is failing, it is easily able to handle toilet flushes, especially from the 1.6 gallon ones. Water is the most easily renewable resource there is. Putting thousands of gallons on your lawn to keep it green is one thing, but skipping a few toilet flushes… meh.</p>
<p>I don’t know if we would be considered frugal or not.</p>
<p>We have the house cleaned every two weeks, but we both work full time and would rather have the time.</p>
<p>We do take-out or order pizza probably more than we should, but since we are both working full-time, sometimes we are just too tired or not in the mood to cook.</p>
<p>We buy our cars new, but run them until they drop or get wrecked. I have found that used car prices at the dealership are high enough to not be worth it. Example - car new is $22K, car 3 yrs old with 50,000 miles is $19K. We generally don’t have weeks to hunt for a replacement vehicle, we need it immediately.</p>
<p>We don’t take expensive vacations (although we do take vacations) or buy expensive cars or buy expensive clothes. We do have a big flat-screen TV which gets a lot of use, and cable TV, but no premium channels (well, NFL Network during the season).</p>
<p>We don’t really use coupons. </p>
<p>We’ve lived in the same house for 20 years and it was/is cheaper than what the banks say we can afford.</p>
<p>DW used her connections to get DD a job at the local gigantiplex movie theatre. As a perk, we all get free tickets. That’s pretty frugal. 
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<p>A friend just bought a used car with 165,000 miles on it for $4,000. Single owner, AWD, in great shape inside and out and this from one of the better used car dealers in the area. It is going to be his winter car and the car to carry his dog around in and long-distance car.</p>
<p>He does a lot of his own work on cars including welding and replacing regular maintenance stuff. He’s way cheaper than I am.</p>
<p>I cook most meals from scratch and clean my house. I wash almost every piece of clothing (except DH’s suit that needs to be dry cleaned once in a while, unfortunately). When we go on vacation, we choose a place with a kitchen and outdoor grills - it is a huge time saver as we are not tied to restaurants’ schedules. The food is generally healthier, too, and the drinks are way cheaper. Our cars are always bought new, but we keep them forever. Mr Tundra is turning 12 in May, he has less than 40K on the odometer - he was instrumental in helping us to landscape our horse acre lot from scratch. I do not think of as frugality; as musica said, this is common sense.</p>
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<p>As the spouse of coureur, I can tell you that I [bold type] am the one in the family who spends the money on tastes hobbies and toys and leaves lights on all around the house, LOL!</p>
<p>I agree that extreme frugality could very well be the kissing cousin to extreme hoarding. I haven’t heard anything done by posters here that I would consider anything other than regular frugality or being careful with money. </p>
<p>The best way to be frugal is one that we did not take advantage of–sending our kids to much cheaper “good enough” colleges…and I am sure that others HAVE judged us on that. But what the heck…it’s all a matter of what you want to spend your money on.</p>
<p>I enjoy being frugal (I consider finding deals on the web to be a sport) but there are some things I will splurge on. Having a cleaning person come in every other week is one of them. I do laundry but she will wash and change the linens and clean. I love coming home to a clean house. I don’t buy expensive coffee drinks and I don’t get manicures. I consider the cleaning on my list of necessities. If I didnt work it might be different. Maybe.</p>
<p>“I go around the house and turn off lights that other family members leave on after they’ve left the room.”</p>
<p>DH trained everyone, including all Ds’ BFs to turn the lights off when they are done/leaving the room. 
I’m surprised that the cats are still not trained.</p>
<p>Our hobbies serve dual purpose: for example, we like to garden, and we like to eat fresh produce. The two are very synergistic (if the slugs and bunnies do not get to the produce first).</p>
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<p>New word…thanks to DrGoogle!</p>
<p>It should probably be a verb too!</p>
<p>I frugal, you frugal, he she or it frugals…yes, I think that works!</p>
<p>I <3 the English language. </p>
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<p>My dad trained us. I have in turned trained my boyfriend and my roommate. It’s a good cycle.</p>
<p>I cut my husband’s hair. I buy oatmeal in bulk and make my own granola. I can get about forty meals from half of a spiral sliced ham. I freeze slices and use them different ways and use the bone for a large batch of split pea soup that I freeze. I don’t own a debit card. I use a credit card and pay it off every month. A cc gives me a better sense of what I’m spending. I still go to the bank and take out about a hundred dollars a week. I hold stocks for a year to get capital gains treatment. I get reciepts for charitable donations and deduct them. I’m too frugal during this poor economy too have a housekeeper, paint, and redecorate my house. I keep putting off having my cars detailed and some scratches repainted. I put off buying a new car. I haven’t had a party in years because deciding to do it myself or hire a caterer overwhelms me. On the one hand it’s so much work if I do it and on the other it’s so expensive to have a party catered. I have some paybacks so I have to make up my mind.</p>
<p>So that is the boyfriends’ excuse for turning out the lights…they’re saving money…for us. How thoughtful.</p>
<p>^ That made me spit water on my laptop hehe.</p>
<p>:)…sorry about that…</p>
<p>I grow my own tomatoes—but I’m pretty sure I don’t save any money at all by doing it! I think that might actually fall under luxuries, given the fact that I grow heirloom tomatoes and obsess about them. I don’t think homegrown potatoes save us any money either (although the flavor is amazing). </p>
<p>However, the lettuces do save money, especially since I do one seed packet (mixed greens) in February and just keep trimming the lettuces until they finally bolt in August–I get two small salads a week from that one packet. Homegrown shallots probably save us money as well. I also grow my own herb plants–sage, rosemary, parsley, tarragon, bay leaf, chives–and those herbs are much less expensive than fresh ones at the market. </p>
<p>I used to pay someone to clean the house, until I realized that I could do a better job in less time than they did, simply by laying in the correct supplies. If you spray the shower every day, it stays clean (and the same spray works pretty well on the toilet); if you clean the kitchen lightly every day (after dinner), it stays clean; if you buy a good vacuum, vacuuming is pretty easy. It’s the big once-a-year clean that I always want help for, but the reality of that is that cleaning services really aren’t geared to do that well.</p>
<p>OP here…I’m having great fun reading all of your strategies!</p>
<p>We deposit all paychecks to savings, then move what we need to checking. Also, reimbursement checks and gift checks go to savings. </p>
<p>Here’s one I don’t think any of you has mentioned. I have a closet full of what my kids call “dead lady clothes”! A friend works for an business that helps move elderly through nursing home care and also clean out houses to close out estates. For what the estates/relatives pay for the service, they are not interested in paying the intermediary to resell the goods.</p>
<p>So the business decides what goes to charity and what goes to auction. A couple of times, my friend has brought me goodies with the tags still on. The first time, it was over $1800 in Talbots, Brighton, etc. More recently, I wore a St. John Knits jacket (tagged at $790!) with black pants for Christmas.</p>
<p>I don’t sell any of these on eBay. Anything that doesn’t feel right goes to good will or gets passed on to others. (right now, I’m struggling to give away a beautiful hand knit Irish sweater with the Garfinkels label - now closed DC department store). It’s just too big on me. I’d rather give it away (for postage) than sell it on eBay for $30.</p>
<p>Back to the topic. We don’t have anyone clean our house, but we do pay for lawn mowing and gutter cleaning. DH does some home projects and some appliance repair. There’s a great site called Repair Clinic. </p>
<p>I’m also reasonably frugal at work, although I will admit to wasting paper. I bring my lunch every day. We have web business and we recycle (reuse) clean packing materials and I relentlessly go after vendors when their shipments are in error.</p>
<p>My husband was a Boy Scout and I always tell him that he skipped the reverent part of the oath but got a double dose of thrifty. I can’t stand burning money either, but it’s hard to get him to see the extent to which you usually get what you pay for. I am struggling now with a stove we bought a few years ago, a discontinued model that is really inconsistent with oven temperature. He thinks that a little aggravation is worth putting up with because hey, we saved $900! (and he doesn’t cook much, either.) Eh.</p>
<p>We’re frugal by buying very reliable cars and driving them for eons. We don’t really do vacations, to my sorrow, though we do build little trips around weddings, graduations, and moving our kids into new schools or apartments. Our mortgage is paid off and we’re saving most of that each month, which I suppose is frugal. We could afford a more expensive home but I’m past the point of wanting one. When I can convince dh to move, it’s going to be to a smaller place.</p>