Irrational frugality

[target2019]

I remember giving a kid with his mom a quarter to take the cart back. Big grin on that kid.

 

[Walt34]

Lol. Not Glen Showalter. My frugal skills are several notches above Glen's. Heck, the stuff he bought was Quaker Oats product. I always knew about the stuff on the lower shelves and my kids were much younger than his when I had to match wits with them.

This reminds me of this story. When I was an infant I'd had surgery done and the doctor told my parents to feed me skim milk for a while because it would be easier to digest. My dad carpooled with two or three other guys and once on the way home he asked to stop at a convenience store to "buy some skim milk for the baby".

"What!" they said. "You feed skim milk to the baby?"

"Sure" he said. "It's cheaper and he doesn't know the difference".

The other guys later told him they debated whether to let him back into the car.

 

[GreatLaker]

A friend of mine got a new electric razor every year, for "free". He bought a Philishave/Norelco 2-head shaver. The design stayed basically the same year after year, except for cosmetic changes. After a year, he would buy a new one, put the old razor in the new box and return it to the store for a refund, saying he was unsatisfied.

Then once he tried it at Walmart with a GPS. They were smart enough to check the serial number on the device to the serial number on the box. End of that game.

That crossed the border from irrational frugality to theft.

 

[Helena]

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I grew up in a frugal family who taught me two important economic lessons.

"A penny saved is a penny earned "

"Keep the pennies in line and the dollars will follow."


Both my father and I retired early.

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[Helena]

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"A penny saved is a penny earned "


Actually... an after tax penny saved is MORE than a penny earned if you paid taxes on that penny earned.

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[Helena]

You deem this frugality irrational, and certainly no retirement is going to fail because you buy Brawny paper towels instead of store brand.

But so what? One benefit of retirement is a clearer mind, and one way to get a clearer mind is to have default procedures in many common situations. It may not even matter what the default is, but for it to help it should be reasonably consistent. Go with perceived or assumed quality would be one default, go with the store brand another. Most of us are certainly not truly wealthy, regardless of what we might like to imagine. So most practical might be "go with the store brand, unless experience has taught you to avoid it in this store or this category or whatever.

Or one can do what I do when buying paper towels, toilet paper, etc.

Use an ad discount [everyone here gets several weekly grocery store circulars in the mail]... then stock up on the name brand at my neighborhood Walmart [Walmart honors competitor ads.]

There is also a way you can do this on line... but I prefer the old fashioned way.

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[ugeauxgirl]

I LIKE being frugal- so I don't consider it irrational. Its like a game- how little can I spend on things I need but don't care about (like paper towels) so that I can enjoy spending a little more on fun stuff like vacations. And we find we like "off the beaten path" vacations better than luxurious ones anyway. We once won a trip at a fancy resort that came with a butler- we had to tell him after the first day we didn't need him but thanks. We didn't want to wait for him to do things we could as easily have done ourselves.

 

[karen1972]

I don't know what your talking about (as I prepare to shop) and looking at my spreadsheet (ok i keep a spreadsheet) which breaks out all the stuff I buy by ounce/count etc, where I bought it at the best price, what type of coupons I used, etc... going to eventually turn it into an app once I finish the last of my class... so I might be going a bit far, but its hard to track and when you see a sale and figure out that its still twice as much as you find elsewhere..its frustrating... like today it started with the clorox toilet bowel cleaner, I got it cheaper at Costco when there was a manufacturer coupon, but haven't seen in awhile so now i'm out so stuck buying, and target has buy 3, get 1 free so that is the best deal but I'm paying 1 1/2c per ounce more, so 36 cents more per 24 oz bottle.. and I wouldn't even be buying this expensive product if it wasn't for the fact my honey refuses to clean the toilets without it.. so now i have to weigh doing the toilets myself or paying the extra 36 cents... decisions decisions.

 

[Helena]

I LIKE being frugal- so I don't consider it irrational. Its like a game- how little can I spend on things I need but don't care about (like paper towels) so that I can enjoy spending a little more on fun stuff like vacations. And we find we like "off the beaten path" vacations better than luxurious ones anyway. We once won a trip at a fancy resort that came with a butler- we had to tell him after the first day we didn't need him but thanks. We didn't want to wait for him to do things we could as easily have done ourselves.

Bravo... a frugal girl after my own heart.

When I was growing up... our family vacations were usually camping out... but in interesting and diverse places... the mountains, the desert, the forest, etc... good family times I will never forget !!

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[Nemo2]

We didn't want to wait for him to do things we could as easily have done ourselves.

We don't even like being served meals by waiters, and almost never frequent restaurants.....shipboard we eat in the buffet, and only occasionally venture into the dining rooms at the behest of friends...just hate people hovering over us.

 

[braumeister]

Nemo2, you're a man after my own heart. I'm the same way. I have friends who eat at least one, if not two meals in restaurants every day. I probably do so once or twice a month.

First, I enjoy cooking all my food from scratch.
Second, I begrudge the time. From first contact until paying bill takes quite a while, and guarantees I'll go through two or three beers before leaving. If I had eaten at home, it probably would have been only one. Good for the restaurant but bad for my waistline.

 

[ugeauxgirl]

We don't even like being served meals by waiters, and almost never frequent restaurants.....shipboard we eat in the buffet, and only occasionally venture into the dining rooms at the behest of friends...just hate people hovering over us.

I DO love being served in restaurants- love especially that I don't have to clean the kitchen and do dishes after. But the whole butler thing was just weird. We asked him to bring us coffee one morning and then stared at each other fully dressed (didn't want the butler seeing my pjs) waiting for him to arrive when we could have been at the restaurant drinking coffee and watching the tide come in. To each his own though- somebody must like personal butler service or swanky resorts wouldn't offer them.

 

[Helena]

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Speaking of eating out...

When I go to a local fast food hamburger restaurant, I buy only the hamburger... nothing else [I bring my own bottled water.]

One day on my receipt there was a special offer coupon... buy medium drink and medium fries and get a hamburger free.

On the next visit, I used the special offer coupon... and paid OVER A DOLLAR MORE for the "medium drink and fries" and "free hamburger" than I usually pay for the hamburger alone.

A friend who used to manage a fast food restaurant told me they make most of their money on those drink and fries extras... so I am sticking to my old routine.

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[Texas Proud]

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Speaking of eating out...

When I go to a local fast food hamburger restaurant, I buy only the hamburger... nothing else [I bring my own bottled water.]

One day on my receipt there was a special offer coupon... buy medium drink and medium fries and get a hamburger free.

On the next visit, I used the special offer coupon... and paid OVER A DOLLAR MORE for the "medium drink and fries" and "free hamburger" than I usually pay for the hamburger alone.

A friend who used to manage a fast food restaurant told me they make most of their money on those drink and fries extras... so I am sticking to my old routine.

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I would not look at it that way... I would look at it as them selling you drink and fries for $1.... now, if you do not want to pay $1 for those two items, go back to your old way...

 

[Helena]

I would not look at it that way... I would look at it as them selling you drink and fries for $1.... now, if you do not want to pay $1 for those two items, go back to your old way...

On the receipt, the cost of the drink alone was almost two dollars.

I can buy a six-pack of coke for that price.

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[Aerides]

I spent a good 3-4 minutes comparing spinach at the store yesterday. Oz's per bag, expiry dates (never manage to finish spinach so I want the freshest one - an item I can use more of before tossing = deal!)

After all that, I forgot to put it in the recipe last night.

 

[Nemo2]

somebody must like personal butler service or swanky resorts wouldn't offer them.

DW posts occasionally on Cruise Critic......a certain category of people just love to brag about having 'concierge service', where they pay considerably more, (and over tip on top of that), to have someone perform some minor undertaking that they could probably have done themselves in about one fifth of the time when you factor in the initial waiting period.

Well, à chacun son goût I guess.

 

[Sunset]

I spent a good 3-4 minutes comparing spinach at the store yesterday. Oz's per bag, expiry dates (never manage to finish spinach so I want the freshest one - an item I can use more of before tossing = deal!)

After all that, I forgot to put it in the recipe last night.

Oh I hate that, I did it with some thin sliced sirloin I had purchased specifically for a stir fry, and then over the next 5 nights I made other meals, and found the sirloin too late, so in the garbage it went.