Let's talk about the false-frugality trap.
A shipmate moved from Japan to the Mainland and as part of his downsizing he offered me his old Mac Mini-- free! What could be better than free?
Good: Free Mac Mini, Kensington KVM switch, Samsung SyncMaster 191T, and many many connector cables. All free.
Not so good: The cost of shipping the hardware & a foot-high stack of books was $70. (Plus whatever it cost my shipmate to get it to my drop shipper.) I also "needed" a new power strip, a PS/2-USB adaptor, & a few feet of Ethernet cable. (I shoulda stopped there but it was too tempting to add a UPS and a backup HD connector.) Let's call it $60 of "needs" and another $190 of "wants".
Let's not forget "some assembly required": an entire afternoon of furniture moving, body contortions, positioning, repositioning, connecting, reconnecting, routing, testing, tidying, downloading, tweaking, and so on. Some of the documentation was only in kanji and four-point graphics. Seven PC USB ports were barely enough. I also devoted a good bit of time to cable wrapping & bunny-proofing.
Then there's the deferred "just one more thing"-- in this case a Firewire rig or maybe a USB hub. The Mini seems a bit light on connections.
What initially seemed like "free" actually worked out to a modest capital expenditure (and hours of effort) as the tuition payment for self-paced learning. I like the Samsung monitor a lot more than our Sony (same display area) so later I'll sell the Sony and split the profits. That's probably $50 off the $130 "needs" spending.
I'm enjoying myself but there's no way that I could ever sell this as "frugal", let alone "free".
Our kid says she wants the Mac when she moves out. I told her I'll give it to her for "free"...