He is so frugal he......

[FUEGO]

I just cannot believe how many of the big spenders here are buying lunches at McDonald's! Bringing your own lunch is frugal. There is not a shade of doubt that this Igloo cooler has saved me well into five figures over the years. Not a bad ROI for a $12 cooler.

I'm thinking more of a road trip. $15 or so to feed the family of 5, maybe grab a coffee while we are there. Possibly let the kids burn off another couple hundred miles of steam in the Play Place. Rest, relaxation, recreation, caffeination, for under $20.

We do often pack a picnic lunch/dinner for the first meal or two of a road trip, but not always.

 

[Walt34]

We do often pack a picnic lunch/dinner for the first meal or two of a road trip, but not always.

My parents did that when we were growing up, but it was only a one-day trip to a grandmother's in Buffalo, NY from DC. Mom would pack a big wicker picnic basket with sandwiches and such. My ex always wanted to stop at a restaurant on the way to her parents in Boston (also a one-day trip) and that was a foreign concept to me. Such a huge waste of money and extended the travel time by an hour! I was used to eating with wheels turning.

I don't think I saw the inside of a restaurant until I was in high school and that was Shakey's Pizza with the guys after work at my first job.

 

[Idnar7]

I have a huge container of twisties. I always put two or three on when buying vegetables at the store. One year my DW gave me a bag of used twisties for Christmas. A great/practical gift. I use them as many use duct tape. My mother used to rinse and wash plastic plates and utensils for summer use. My dad saved every piece of wood no matter how small - "we can always burn it". Cool Whip containers make a great paint bucket. A second to the Talenti gelato jars. We recently removed wallpaper and repainted the inside of the house. All the various paints are labeled in the clear Talenti jars. I am amazed at all the good ideas in this thread. Thanks

 

[karen1972]

So there are the frugal mishaps..like my father use to have us take out nails from on project, straighten them and reuse them..until he tried it with the roof and it leaked all the time.

Second mishap at Walt Disney we packed a lunch.. cooked a pizza, cut it into bite size snacks and ate while in line..along with PB hotdogs..Ie because someone forgot kids don't eat dogs with buns..all was great till my sister packed pickles and the bag leaked out pickle juice..hmm wet pickle juice clothes all day long



I love shoe boxes for storage, I keep lots of misc stuff from projects and can almost always find a nail and screw without buying one, my broadest moment was reusing a wall.. took weird wall down in basement and needed to build a closet..so managed to keep wall in tact, drywall and all and made wall of closet..only had to tape corners and I was done.

 

[Rick_Head]

We do often pack a picnic lunch/dinner for the first meal or two of a road trip, but not always.

Buy groceries and cook along the way. I often go on long (3 -7) days with my old car buddies. DW gave me this aid for Xmas a few years ago. Not only frugal, but better tasting too.

 

[FUEGO]

Buy groceries and cook along the way. I often go on long (3 -7) days with my old car buddies. DW gave me this aid for Xmas a few years ago. Not only frugal, but better tasting too.

I'd like to try but my wife and 3 kids might try to cook me!

Stopping along the way is part of the fun, and lets the driver (me!) relax.

 

[aja8888]

Buy groceries and cook along the way. I often go on long (3 -7) days with my old car buddies. DW gave me this aid for Xmas a few years ago. Not only frugal, but better tasting too.

Working on oil and gas projects in Wyoming in the middle of nowhere, we cooked lots of food on our truck engines.

(you have to remember to put a small hole in a can of beans before heating up the can, though)

 

[jazz4cash]

I don't think I saw the inside of a restaurant until I was in high school and that was Shakey's Pizza with the guys after work at my first job.

Shakey's!!!! Yeah! Haven't thought about them for many years.

 

[Calico]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned recycling wrapping paper, gift bags and bows and ribbon. Perhaps that is a given amongst this frugal crowd. DM, born in 1925, painfully slowly unwraps gifts taking time to fold wrapping paper so that it doesn't wrinkle. And of course all boxes are saved. She hasn't bought new paper/ribbon in years.

My grandmother did all this and one more - she recycled Christmas cards. They received hundreds of cards every year (many from clients) and she cut the fronts off of the cards and re-used them on gifts as "To-From" tags. This was decades ago when everyone sent beautiful cards every year. I loved this habit of hers and have never known anyone else who did it.

 

[34rlsa]

In the spirit of the holidays... I'll share one from my Dad.

Christmas trees.

When I was a kid every year my Dad would buy a live beautiful Blue Spruce tree... With all the roots and soil wrapped in a burlap bag. We would bring it into the house and decorate it as usual. Then after New Years my dad would take the tree and transplant it in our yard. We had several beautiful trees that grew and grew for years all over our small lot.

p.s. Took me a while but his is my 100th post!

 

[Idnar7]

34risa, congrats on 100! Calico my aunt used to recycle Christmas cards also. She pasted snippets from old cards to make new ones. For family she even included part of the card you sent her the previous year into your new card. Alas, she now has Alzheimers and that tradition has ended.

 

[target2019]

Amazing stories of frugality...
Have not heard from coffee filter reusers yet. Some wash the filter and use again. And again, and again.

It is my understanding, and I've seen proof, that the paper coffee filter is virtually indestructible. We place the daily filter and grinds in a bucket. Dump this in the garden, and pick out the filters after a few heavy rains. They seem stronger than new. I have tried to shred these with leaf shredder, but to no avail. Long live paper!

 

[REWahoo]

For you folks who want to minimize your paper towel usage, try slicing the roll to yield more efficient towel sizes. Like this:

 

[Ronstar]

In the spirit of the holidays... I'll share one from my Dad.

Christmas trees.

When I was a kid every year my Dad would buy a live beautiful Blue Spruce tree... With all the roots and soil wrapped in a burlap bag. We would bring it into the house and decorate it as usual. Then after New Years my dad would take the tree and transplant it in our yard. We had several beautiful trees that grew and grew for years all over our small lot.

p.s. Took me a while but his is my 100th post!

Congrats on your 100th post! and kudos to your dad for transplanting your Christmas trees.

 

[GreenER]

My grandmother did all this and one more - she recycled Christmas cards. They received hundreds of cards every year (many from clients) and she cut the fronts off of the cards and re-used them on gifts as "To-From" tags. This was decades ago when everyone sent beautiful cards every year. I loved this habit of hers and have never known anyone else who did it.

Well you just haven't met my family!

 

[MRG]

In the spirit of the holidays... I'll share one from my Dad.

Christmas trees.

When I was a kid every year my Dad would buy a live beautiful Blue Spruce tree... With all the roots and soil wrapped in a burlap bag. We would bring it into the house and decorate it as usual. Then after New Years my dad would take the tree and transplant it in our yard. We had several beautiful trees that grew and grew for years all over our small lot.

p.s. Took me a while but his is my 100th post!

My DW and I did that our first Christmas in a new home. Around here ground may be frozen so dig the whole on Thanksgiving. The ball weighed a ton.

That was the first and only time, for us. Glad your family did more.
Congrats on your 100th post....

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[Meadbh]

In the spirit of the holidays... I'll share one from my Dad.

Christmas trees.

When I was a kid every year my Dad would buy a live beautiful Blue Spruce tree... With all the roots and soil wrapped in a burlap bag. We would bring it into the house and decorate it as usual. Then after New Years my dad would take the tree and transplant it in our yard. We had several beautiful trees that grew and grew for years all over our small lot.

p.s. Took me a while but his is my 100th post!

Now that is sustainability, which I admire!

 

[38Chevy454]

Buy groceries and cook along the way. I often go on long (3 -7) days with my old car buddies. DW gave me this aid for Xmas a few years ago. Not only frugal, but better tasting too.

Manifold burritos! Wrap the burrito in foil and this works great to heat them up!

 

[Mulligan]

For you folks who want to minimize your paper towel usage, try slicing the roll to yield more efficient towel sizes. Like this:

If I showed this to my Dad you would have an instant friend for life.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Calico]

Well you just haven't met my family!

Maybe we are related!

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

In the spirit of the holidays... I'll share one from my Dad.

Christmas trees.

When I was a kid every year my Dad would buy a live beautiful Blue Spruce tree... With all the roots and soil wrapped in a burlap bag. We would bring it into the house and decorate it as usual. Then after New Years my dad would take the tree and transplant it in our yard. We had several beautiful trees that grew and grew for years all over our small lot.

p.s. Took me a while but his is my 100th post!

When I lived with my Mother (just a couple of years) we did that for 2 years; 1982 and 1983 if I recall. This house was sold in 1999 but the two trees that we planted are still there!

 

[Major Tom]

If I showed this to my Dad you would have an instant friend for life.

Mine too. My Dad would have thoroughly approved of that.

All the comments about getting the last squeezes of toothpaste out of the tube reminded me of how much easier it was to do this when toothpaste tubes used to be made out of a mixture of plastic and aluminum, and retained the shape they were bent into. Perhaps a few hardy souls even remember when toothpaste tubes were made entirely of metal (a mixture of tin and lead) up until WW2.

I don't buy paper towels at all. I use rags for wiping floors and surfaces, and if I want to use a paper towel, use a few sheets of bathroom tissue instead.

For the most part, I don't go to any great lengths to be frugal. My lifestyle in a 285 sq ft studio with just a bicycle, my feet, and the occasional bus or train for transport seems to have frugality built into it. I don't have a TV subscription, and my total phone + internet bills come to $35/month (less if I don't call much long distance). On top of that, my rent is cheap (for the area). Because my main recurring bills are well under control, the extra savings involved in making a tube of toothpaste last longer, or using less bathroom tissue/paper towels would be minimal compared to the money I save by not buying a car, for example.

I don't have a car, and I don't have HBO/Discovery etc etc, but my personal luxury in the winter evenings is settling down with a nice cup of hot coca spiked with whisky. Heaven! Gotta live it up from time to time

 

[unclemick]

I hope folks reading this thread know there is a dastardly ending to all this.

After 21 years of varying degrees of fugal (er cheap) your portfolio gets out of hand and epiphany strikes - you can't take it with you.

heh heh heh - come 70 1/2 your Pals at the IRS show up to help you. So do you spend the leftovers or stay frugal?

P.S. the last few years before marriage and moving again - I ran an outdoor extension cord and decorated the 6-8 ft Blue Spruce in the front yard - why 'buy' a tree?

 

[aja8888]

heh heh heh - come 70 1/2 your Pals at the IRS show up to help you. So do you spend the leftovers or stay frugal?

I'm feeling that pain now and DW thinks I just got a raise!

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Dear old Dad has been using the same spatula with the broken handle for literally as long as I can remember, which would be the mid-1960's. He gets a puzzled look when I suggest he replace it. Oh, and he also has literally over a million in his investment accounts.

I guess what we used to call "being cheap" is now referred to as "being green." Dad is proud of the fact that his weekly garbage consists of one plastic grocery bag full of stuff (he recycles his newspapers, glass and cans), but he doesn't necessarily identify himself as an "environmentalist;" it's just what one DOES.