He is so frugal he......

[NW-Bound]

There's always tube socks.

of which I do not currently have any. I have not used them, mainly because I do not think that they would be comfortable (are they for people whose feet are tubular?).

What I have been doing is to buy cheap socks from discount stores at 2 or 3 pairs per dollar. They do not last long, but serve the purpose.

This thread reminds me of another thread on frugality. I found that thread shortly after discovering this forum, and it was good entertainment.

See: http://www.early-retirement.org/for...ave-ever-done-come-on-now-admit-it-26316.html.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I sign up for all sorts of email sales letters and have them go to a disposable email address. Most are 20% off kind of emails or coupons for stuff you can buy cheaper on Amazon without any coupons, but every now and then I'll get flat out free gift cards or equivalents of $10 or so worth of merchandise with no minimum spend. If these are from a clothing or department store, I use them to stockpile socks for the family. Usually stores in financial trouble will do this out of desperation. I am really going to miss Sears when they go under. I'm might have to start paying for socks some day.

 

[merlin3942]

To the great chagrin of everyone else in the family, I separate 2-ply napkins into 2 1-ply napkins ... and then tear those in half, so I get 4 napkins from each one .....

 

[Indiana Randy]

I just cut a roll of paper towels in half. Now it looks like I have toilet paper on the counter.

 

[marko]

I haven't read every single post on this thread but it is interesting!

But! Isn't there a fine line between frugal and going overboard?

My aforementioned grandad was a multimillionaire who ended up sitting alone in his 18 room house with every single light out, watching a crappy little TV and the heat set at 62 degrees. His electric bill was $9 a month.

He had even found an 'antique dealer' who practically cleaned out most of his furniture and paid him ten percent of the real value. (But woe to the family member who tried to intervene!!)

The rest of the family just found it so sad that with all his wherewithal that he wouldn't at least allow himself to be physically comfortable in his last years.

Well, us heirs got over it quickly anyway.

 

[Sunset]

30 years ago, my grandad got one of those 'press the button if you fall down' that would automatically call for help.

Afterwards, he found out that the call for help was to a center about 15 miles away...resulting in a 15 cent toll call!!

When he broke his hip, he decided to drag himself across the room and pull the phone off the table to call his daughter instead of that dreaded 15 cent long distance charge.

"...I knew she'd be home. If she wasn't home, I'd have pushed the button..."

The worse part is that he had (ahem!) plenty of money.

Ahhhh, when men were MEN

 

[Sunset]

My Dad reached rock bottom in his frugalness early this year when he came up with an idea to saw the paper towel roll in half. His eternally patient wife finally had to step in and draw the line there. Next time I was there the paper towels were fully intact.
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Hey, I thought I was the only one with that idea, then I found paper towels that are perforated at 1/2 size instead of full sheets.

I also use 1/2 a dry sheet instead of a full one in the dryer, I would saw the roll in 1/2 to make it easy to use, as those dryer sheets are tough to rip in half from the roll.

I will pick up pennies/money lying on the ground, and still feel amazed people won't bother to pick up their quarters. Once in a parking lot, I saw a bill 20 feet away, picked it up to see it was a $50 bill Another time at McD's the person in front of me dropped a dollar, so I told them, as being cheap/frugal is fine but honesty is nicer.

 

[Mulligan]

Hey, I thought I was the only one with that idea, then I found paper towels that are perforated at 1/2 size instead of full sheets.

I also use 1/2 a dry sheet instead of a full one in the dryer, I would saw the roll in 1/2 to make it easy to use, as those dryer sheets are tough to rip in half from the roll.

I will pick up pennies/money lying on the ground, and still feel amazed people won't bother to pick up their quarters. Once in a parking lot, I saw a bill 20 feet away, picked it up to see it was a $50 bill Another time at McD's the person in front of me dropped a dollar, so I told them, as being cheap/frugal is fine but honesty is nicer.

A couple months ago on my daily walk around town, I found a $20, then about 20 feet away a $100, and then another $20. All in a ditch along the path I was walking. You think you would be excited to find that. I didn't realize what a greedy person I was as I was disappointed I didn't find more. I had visions of a money trail from a drug deal gone bad or something I guess.


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[marko]

Ahhhh, when men were MEN

Oh! The story gets better:

After getting back home from the broken hip, he hired a local woman to help out with bathing, meals and shopping.
One day she casually mentioned that she had just lost her other job... "So I cut her pay right then and there!" he said.

"Why would you cut her pay when she told you she just lost her other job?"

"I figured she had no place else to go and she'd realize that what little I gave her would be better than nothing"

He honestly couldn't understand why we were outraged...he was so proud of himself.

 

[scrabbler1]

I will pick up pennies/money lying on the ground, and still feel amazed people won't bother to pick up their quarters. Once in a parking lot, I saw a bill 20 feet away, picked it up to see it was a $50 bill Another time at McD's the person in front of me dropped a dollar, so I told them, as being cheap/frugal is fine but honesty is nicer.

Back in 2008, a few months before I ERed, I had a run of finding cash laying around. This included several $1 bills on the sidewalk near my apartment building one time, and a $10 bill another time. On a PATH train, I found several $1 dollar bills wrapped around a Metrocard. I sold the Metrocard (an automated fare card) to a friend at a slight discount because I couldn't easily use it at the time. Then, there were several times the LIRR conductor failed to punch my ticket correctly so I was able to reuse it a second time. My dad once found an unused LIRR ticket in a library book he was reading being used as a bookmark and gave it to me when I noticed it. Each of these "additional" uses of a LIRR ticket saved me $8.75. These events occurred about twice a month so it really felt like these people were just handing me money after a while LOL!

 

[NW-Bound]

Oh! The story gets better:

After getting back home from the broken hip, he hired a local woman to help out with bathing, meals and shopping.
One day she casually mentioned that she had just lost her other job... "So I cut her pay right then and there!" he said.

"Why would you cut her pay when she told you she just lost her other job?"

"I figured she had no place else to go and she'd realize that what little I gave her would be better than nothing"

He honestly couldn't understand why we were outraged...he was so proud of himself.

That's not frugal! Your granddad was heartless. I wonder what care quality he would expect from her after that pay cut.

 

[Sunset]

I've used ophthalmic ointment for several eye injuries - the stuff for cats was about an 1/8 the cost for people eye grease and had the same ingredients and size and shape tube. Worked and felt the same. I figure drugs for animals are the same whether you add or subtract a soul - you are treating the body anyway.

My mother was a product of the depression "a penny saved is a penny earned" type of person.

She took good care of us kids, even though children are expensive. At breakfast along with whatever food we ate (which was frankly good breakfasts), she gave us vitamins.

It was cod liver oil, tasted awful, but of course we had to take it.
As I got older and could read, I got up on the stool one day and looked at the dreaded bottle of cod liver oil on the high shelf (too much is posionous). It was labelled: "For Veterinary use only"

No wonder I grew up strong as a horse.....

 

[NW-Bound]

"Frugal is how you treat yourself. Cheap is how you treat others." -- Andrew Tobias

 

[Sunset]

Every 3 or 4 days I put my dish sponge in a small jar, add ~4 drops of bleach, fill it with water, cap it and let sit until it's needed next. Why? Sponges gross out long before they wear out.

Back when my sister had a rabbit, I grocery shopped at places where the cashiers would ask customers if they wanted the greens removed from their fresh carrots. If so, the greens went in the trash. I'd usually ask the cashier if they had any carrot greens because my rabbit loved them.

When I grew up we BBQ'd supper nearly every night in the summer and it was always chicken wings. This was before they were popular in bars.
My mom would get them free from the butcher as they would just throw them out back then.
She would also send me to get soup bones, and I'd come home with a 5-10 bag of bones, she would boil them up to make soup, and then give them to the dog, while we had home made soup that night.

Now you have to pay for those things.

 

[Legally_dead]

My wife once waited two weeks to buy a watermelon because they were "overpriced" by $1.50. She also searches for dropped coins at toll booths and in the gum in front of convenience store cashiers.


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[marko]

That's not frugal! Your granddad was heartless. I wonder what care quality he would expect from her after that pay cut.

I could write a book.
When my brother was a teenager, gramps sold ("give" was a four letter word) one of his old cars to him for $100.

A few months later, he told my brother that he was feeling nostalgic for his old car and could he buy it back. My brother felt bad and said, "just take it" and didn't want any money.

Two days later my brother asked him "where's the car?"...Gramps had SOLD it to someone else for $200!!! And then laughed at my brother for being such a fool!

 

[Bestwifeever]

I could write a book.
When my brother was a teenager, gramps sold ("give" was a four letter word) one of his old cars to him for $100.

A few months later, he told my brother that he was feeling nostalgic for his old car and could he buy it back. My brother felt bad and said, "just take it" and didn't want any money.

Two days later my brother asked him "where's the car?"...Gramps had SOLD it to someone else for $200!!! And then laughed at my brother for being such a fool!

Your grandfather makes the rest of our "he's so frugal...." Stories look like extravagances.

 

[marko]

Your grandfather makes the rest of our "he's so frugal...." Stories look like extravagances.

As noted earlier, his heirs are quite grateful.

 

[rodi]

Anyone else make their own cleaning supplies. I make a spray cleaner that's vinegar, a few drops of liquid soap, and a few drops of tea tree oil (anti fungal). I use that as a kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner, all purpose de-gunker. The soap helps degunk, the vinegar shines up surfaces like appliances and counters and porcelain fixtures... It's less toxic than the stuff you buy at the store (the reason I started doing this) and significantly cheaper.

- As mentioned earlier - reusable shop rags purchased in bulk from costco. I don't care if their stained, so I don't bother to bleach them.... I must wash 20 or more of them a week.

I've found the more I try to be "green" the more money I save. A win win.

 

[aja8888]

I make my own windshield washer fluid for the fleet:



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001NZFCRW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's really not about being so frugal, just paranoid and choosy about how I treat my vehicles. I do save money by doing this...

 

[NW-Bound]

Your grandfather makes the rest of our "he's so frugal...." Stories look like extravagances.

That is cheap or miserly, not frugal. Again, Andrew Tobias pinpoints the difference.

"Frugal is how you treat yourself. Cheap is how you treat others." -- Andrew Tobias

 

[Live And Learn]

Anyone else make their own cleaning supplies. I make a spray cleaner that's vinegar, a few drops of liquid soap, and a few drops of tea tree oil (anti fungal). I use that as a kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner, all purpose de-gunker. The soap helps degunk, the vinegar shines up surfaces like appliances and counters and porcelain fixtures... It's less toxic than the stuff you buy at the store (the reason I started doing this) and significantly cheaper.

- As mentioned earlier - reusable shop rags purchased in bulk from costco. I don't care if their stained, so I don't bother to bleach them.... I must wash 20 or more of them a week.

I've found the more I try to be "green" the more money I save. A win win.

I'd love to know more about the homemade cleaners. I have a parakeet and am paranoid about using cleaners. I generally stick with vinegar or dish soap (but never thought of putting the two together). Do you have a reputable website or book recommendation ?

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Anyone else make their own cleaning supplies. I make a spray cleaner that's vinegar, a few drops of liquid soap, and a few drops of tea tree oil (anti fungal). I use that as a kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner, all purpose de-gunker. The soap helps degunk, the vinegar shines up surfaces like appliances and counters and porcelain fixtures... It's less toxic than the stuff you buy at the store (the reason I started doing this) and significantly cheaper.

- As mentioned earlier - reusable shop rags purchased in bulk from costco. I don't care if their stained, so I don't bother to bleach them.... I must wash 20 or more of them a week.

I've found the more I try to be "green" the more money I save. A win win.

I do. I have a cleaning box with vinegar, baking soda, essential oils, tea tree oil, Castille soap and some other items. I bought a big package of rags from Sam's Club to cut down on paper towels.

I found some foaming soap pumps on Amazon that use 75% less soap and I fill them with water and Dr. Bronner's Castile when it goes on sale at Sprouts. I buy glycerin bar soap in a bulk once a year or so from a warehouse near our house.

I agree on the green living being frugal as well as reducing chemical and landfill use.

 

[freebird5825]

I sign up for all sorts of email sales letters and have them go to a disposable email address. Most are 20% off kind of emails or coupons for stuff you can buy cheaper on Amazon without any coupons, but every now and then I'll get flat out free gift cards or equivalents of $10 or so worth of merchandise with no minimum spend. If these are from a clothing or department store, I use them to stockpile socks for the family. Usually stores in financial trouble will do this out of desperation. I am really going to miss Sears when they go under. I'm might have to start paying for socks some day.

Same here. JC Penney is my favorite one. Mr B buys his Mom stuff there for birthdays and holidays, so I use my JC Penney rewards card. Next thing you know, I have a $10 freebie in my mailbox, with no minimum spend amount required. I use it towards a great brand of jeggings that fit me perfectly. All done online.
PayPal sends some pretty decent offers to my email also. I delete most but once in a while a good one arrives.

 

[mystang52]

I just gotta say this is the best thread I've seen since I joined this Forum.