I’ve noticed sometimes that there’s some half-baked videos or blogs or whatever that purport this or that frugal trick, but if you look at the time or math, it’s not actually frugal for you.
What are some examples of that you’ve come across? The things that “aren’t worth it”?
For me it’s couponing. (Although I haven’t heard people talk about it recently–has it fallen out of “style”, or have businesses caught up to the loopholes folks used to exploit?)
It’s more of a generalized rule but:
Assume that your own time has value.
A lot of “frugal” tips operate off the assumption that you can spend your own time and it doesn’t cost anything. But your time is valuable. Time spent trying to save a few bucks should be considered working time; ask yourself how much you would get paid by your job for the same amount of time. Maybe you enjoy doing whatever the thing is, so it can be considered recreation, but if it’s some difficult or mind numbing slog, then that doesn’t necessarily mean that you actually saved yourself anything, because you weren’t getting paid to do work, and you could have been doing something more rewarding instead.
I feel this way about cooking. I hate cooking. It takes a lot of time. And lots of cleanup time. And time spent planning and shopping. Plus the tools, ingredients, and power/gas/water used all cost money. With all that in mind, a $9 bowl of chipotle is significantly cheaper by my estimation than cooking an equivalent myself.
I’m with you on cooking something like one meal. If I’m going to get out a bunch of stuff in the kitchen and put in that much effort, then I had better be eating for at least a few days off of what I make. Casseroles, stews, big pots of pasta, and holy hell was I excited when I learned how much curry I could make in one big crock pot and then put that on rice for like two weeks’ worth of meals.
I just cook stuff that basically cooks itself. Crockpots, pasta, certain veggies and meats on the oven. After doing them many times I already know the timings for everything so I just put alarms to remind me of turning the fire off/flipping them in the oven once and that’s it. Doing something else in between. Technically speaking you spend only a couple minutes actively cooking for each meal that way. Just don’t forget to set the alarms or it’s burnt (and move the particular meat from the freezer to the fridge the night before)
Then you need to learn how to cook properly, or get more experience. By the time you have driven to and from chipotle, and factor in that time, the cost of gas, the wear and tear on your car. Cooking is significantly cheaper. We only cook from scratch at home, and it rarely takes more than 15 mins to whip up a good meal that tastes better than most things you can buy, even sit down restaurants. When I cook, I clean as I go normally, so clean up aftewards is fast. If you clean up immediately after, clean up is fast. Time spent eating doesn’t count. 20 minutes, McDonalds drive thru takes 20 mins.
Honestly, to me, that would be incredibly fast prep or your meals are pretty simple. Even easy meals I’ve made a million times take me half an hour. Most take one hour to cook and I still feel like I’m rushing around.
Or just used to cooking. My wife makes mostly Indian inspired dishes, which are surprisingly fast to throw together. We do a lot of Asian cooking also. When I regularly make it, I can do pad-thai in 15-20 mins. And some meals are simple but still taste better than take out.
I live somewhere where I have access to dozens of restaurants within a 5 minute drive and I can order ahead to avoid waiting. Cooking really is not an activity I enjoy so I have no interest in practicing unless I have to. That is not to say I never have food at home. I regularly make healthy super smoothies, sandwiches loaded with greens, prepared salads, and whole grain cereals. I wouldn’t consider that cooking though.
I’m not looking to invalidate the experience of anyone who is good at or enjoys cooking. Just sharing my opinion that this is one area that is very commonly recommended for saving money that I personally don’t find worth my time.
Fair point
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I’d recommend learning how to cook chicken to that list, just as a handy tool to have.
Not to mention the difference in nutritional quality if home-made food is the staple of one’s diet versus take-out. When you make your own food you can adjust the recipe to your own taste so that it tastes good without over-reliance on salt, saturated fats, and other hyper-processed ingredients (which is what’s used to make take-out food taste appealing)
I hate how judgemental people are about food.
The scary thing is, food is directly connected to a person’s ability to live. So when you get in there psychologically and root around, spreading shame and judgement, it might actually stick with someone. It might actually be just ONE more little straw on the camel’s back to break it. Because food is so directly and intimately connected to a person’s physical ability to be healthy, it might very well cascade into something bigger than you ever anticipated.
Especially with all of society yelling their own version of it. And family.
I really, really wish people would shut the hell up about other people’s food habits. It doesn’t really cost YOU anything, but it might actually make life easier on THEM.
I wasn’t trying to be judgemental,but I understand what I said that made it come off that way. That was not my intent. Typing too fast and not thinking about what I said. The point I was trying to make was that you can whip up delicious food at home in the same amount of time it takes to run out and buy fast food. I totally understand I worded it badly in the beginning.
I would not habe worked in that time. I would have sat on the sofa and watched something on Netflix that I do not care about.
It is not a crime to be unproductive. In fact, we all need to be unproductive occasionally.
That may be a more valuable use of your time, for life satisfaction or mental health
Businesses have caught up and fixed the exploits.
For me, it’s dried beans. Beans are an excellent source of protein and fiber, and it doesn’t get much cheaper per serving than bulk dried beans.
But rinsing, soaking over night, and then boiling, only to end up with way more beans than we will consume, and canned beans are almost as good and almost as cheap.
We use a pressure cooker for our dried beans. 20-40 minutes depending on the bean. You don’t have to soak them overnight when using a pressure cooker. I ensure that each batch we make is consumed within five days.
Canned beans are considerably more expensive based on the amount we eat.
If you only eat a can here and there, it’s probably not worth making them from dry.
I’ve found pressure cookers are the only way I can get beans tender. (I’m not a great cook.)
Do you have hard water? That can make beans not get soft if you’re boiling them.
Soaking the beans with baking soda also help tremendously to get softer beans.
Thank you! Excellent tips, now I wanna try them all
Get the beans and water to a boil, then turn down the heat until it’s just simmering.
Simmer for 1 hour, then taste test. Most dried beans will be tender, but some dried beans that have been sitting on the shelf for a long time might take up to 1 more hour of simmering, for a total of 2 hours.
I’ve never had dried beans take more than 2 hours of simmering to tenderize.
Dried lentils take much less time, usually about 45 minutes.
Pour off all the water and rinse the beans until the water runs clean. The bean simmering water contains much of the indigestible sugars that make you fart after you eat beans.
Now the beans are ready to make soups and chili or however you want to use them.
But yeah, 20-40 minutes in a pressure cooker is a lot faster.
Dried beans are a huge win for me (with a pressure cooker) because they’re cheaper and tastier… but the biggest thing is that they’re really easy to get in bulk and store. Canned beans are HEAVY and if you walk / bike / take transit to get groceries that can be a big deal too.
Probably not frugal, but instant pot changed my life, in regards to soaking beans. What a time/effort saver.
Can you share your technique? I have a giant bag of black beans and I always reach for a can instead because it’s such a hassle.
Pour em in the pot, fill with water about an inch over the top of the beans. 40 mins, and pull em, or 30 mins with 15 min natural release (recommended, but I almost never do it).
That sounds very easy. I’ll give it a try, thanks!
This is why I go with lentils. They don’t require that lengthy soak so it doesn’t take much more time to make a serving of lentils than a serving of rice.
Soaking and cooking too many beans? That’s just like opening a big can of beans when a small one would suffice.
Agreed. I only keep dried puy lentils and adzuki beans. White beans, kidney beans, garbanzo… nah fuck that.
And even then, I’m making a batch and freezing half.
Also: fuck broad beans entirely. I have no room for that double shelling nonsense.
You don’t need to soak beans lol why do people always say this? Never have I ever soaked beans before boiling them.
Get an eletric pressure cooker and you can get it from the pack to ready to eat in an hour at most. With a little confidence you can even use most of that time for other stuff.
Searching for the cheapest gas station. Too much time and gas.
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In Australia there are apps that show cheapest prices near you, so at least there’s not too much time and effort involved.
Ah good. Sorry. I’m traumatized by parents driving obsessively around for hours looking for best prices on things…obviously there are better ways now.
There was a trick with the Caltex app where you can do a price lock and then get the fuel from any other Caltex station
What people would do is find the cheapest fuel in the country, use a fake GPS app to make the app think you are close by and lock in the price, then go to their local servo and use the locked in price. Saving 15/20c per litre.
Growing up, that was my mom. She’d circle the parking lot for 15 minutes searching for the perfect spot, then if she saw someone come out to their car would post up right behind them for an uncomfortably long time waiting for them to leave.
I used to hate it so much
We have gasbuddy in the USA. You don’t even need their app (though they have one).
Yep my wife will drive 8 miles to Costco…if you’re going anyway it might be fine. But 16 miles at 22 mpg with $4 gas means it costs $2.80 drive there and back. Saving 8 cents a gallon would be $1.28 in a 16 gallon tank.
I buy gas at the station 1/4 mile from our house…I don’t look at the price. It’s always reasonable.
Cheap gas ain’t good gas anyway. You end up paying for it later in lost fuel efficiency.
You can buy Top Tier now, or you can buy a bottle of polyetheramine later.
Edit to add: this is about the type and quantity of detergent pack, not about the octane/grade. Brands are required to have 2x the EPA mandated minimum detergent in all grades and at all locations to carry the Top Tier logo.
Costco carries it. So the generalization of cheap = bad does not always hold. But it very often will.
Can you cite any evidence that lower tier gas gives worse MPG?
Lower octane gas definitely gives you less power. The owner’s manual for my car gives two different horsepower ratings for different octane gasoline.
Probably a forced induction engine. Normal NA it makes no difference as long as it’s not a high compression engine. Octane rating is how much heat and pressure the gas can handle before auto igniting. So higher octane means an engine with a turbo can run higher boost on higher octane which makes more power. It’s a waste of money for most people to buy more expensive fuel. Though some fuel can be just shit and full of water at those sketchy stations.
Exactly. I tried top tier gas (91 octane) and noticed no difference in gas mileage. I live at high elevation and have the option of 85 octane and do notice the engine rides a little rougher than with 87, but fuel economy is pretty much the same (like within 2%?).
Just get whatever your car’s manual states. Some cars need higher octane, most don’t.
You guys are confusing top tier gas vs higher octane. Or this thread has just been interchanging them and not being consistent. Two terms are being used. Top tiered as name brand vs higher octane. Both discussions are happening at the same time.
I mean the octane tiers at the pump, or what is usually marketed as regular, premium, etc. There are at least two other terms used to describe gas tiers:
- “top tier” - marketing term for gasoline with detergents and whatnot
- tier 3 gas - lower sulfer gas that reduces air pollution
AFAIK, all three terms are independent of each other, so you can have tier 3 gas with or without detergents, in any octane tier you need.
That sounds right, my car is a turbo charged 4 cylinder. TIL, thank you!
It can still be optional to run higher octane. Older Volvo 5 cylinders could run 87 with no problem because they only ran 9lbs of boost (only certain models). Most modern turboed engines usually can optionally run more boost if you put in higher octane. The issue is they rely on detection of early detonation when running worse fuel. Which scares me because of it fails engine goes boom very fast.
Use the octane that is recommended for your vehicle.
Lower octane is not lower tiered. Lower tiered is buying gas at Kroger or Costco vs Shell
Ironically Costco is a certified Top Tier brand.
That’s interesting to know.
Project Farm did a scientific comparison and while the higher octane fuel does give a bit more power and efficiency it doesn’t generally result in much difference. Like less than 5%.
In the US, there aren’t that many refineries. No matter what gas station you go to, your gas is most likely coming from the same closest refinery. The only exceptions here are a few of the name brands, and even then it may not be true, they have their detergent blended too it.
The detergent is the biggest difference. Top Tier brands are guaranteed to have 2x the EPA mandated minimum detergent levels.
If you aren’t getting more detergent at the pump, you end up having to pour it in later to restore performance.
Cloth nappies/diapers. Cleaning them is a black hole for personal time.
The manufacture of 2.5 years of disposable diapers has a lower carbon footprint than the energy usage to launder cloth diapers over the same time period.
So it’s still a win if the energy source is renewable itself.
What about the difference in waste as well? Talk about cherry-picking outcomes to make your product/position look good. It’s like soft drinks advertising that they’re fat-free or chips/crisps saying they’re sugar-free
The linked study includes disposal in their calculations. Disposables still come out ahead.
Thanks for clarifying. I don’t have time to dig into it now. The data’s from 2006. I think it’s fair to say that improvements in energy efficient laundry machines (and detergent) in the last 17 years have been significant - and at a glance laundry-related energy costs represent the lion’s share of reusables’ footprint per this study. I’d love to see more up-to-date data and see if disposables still come out ahead, which would surprise me
I’ll see if I can find some better ones. This was just the first one I plucked out of a random citation, because I knew I would get eviscerated without one. But I’ve been seeing the advice about disposables as far back as I can remember. It was even a trick question in an eco quiz when I was a child back in the 90s (i.e. “Which of these things are better ecological choices?”).
Interestingly the 2006 study itself is an updated version. Disposables did even better in the 2006 study than in the older one: Due to advances in manufacturing and in materials science, they were able to start producing them using less material (which decreases the carbon footprint during manufacturing, shipping, and disposal).
If you’re interested, here’s a 2009 Australian environmental study in which reusable diapers come out on top: https://www.parliament.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/2096268/08.1-Attachment-Life-Cycle-Assessment-Reusable-and-Disposable-Nappies.pdf
That study was disproven when using them for multiple children. That’s the key to climate friendly diapers—using them across all your kids.
I personally don’t mind much using cloth diapers.
We quickly rince them after use so it does not smell unlike dirty diapers in the bin that start smelling after a day (we live in a hot country)
My experience with disposables is that they don’t smell if allowed to dry out, but also I live in an area that is only hot for about 4 months out of the year so I can see where that can change the calculous
I don’t think anyone is using cloth diapers for frugal reasons, but rather for waste and environmental reasons that disposable diapers create (It takes hundreds of years for each disposable diaper to decompose, and they are made with plastic and carcinogens). I’ve looked into the topic, and although it might discount the cost of constant purchase of disposables, the high cost of the cloth ones themselves as well as the cost of running the washing loads mean the reason to switch wouldn’t be for frugal reasons but to stop the influx of disposable diapers into landfills and comfort of the baby wearing it.
Do you have to do more than toss them in the washer?
(I know nothing about the topic, lol.)
You need to de-shit them (it can be quite runny).
You don’t want to wash them with anything else. But you need enough to justify the run.
You need to store them till they can be washed (smelling the whole time).
Babies need a lot of nappies.
All of this is at the most exhausting time in the parents lives!
And there’s a chance that no matter how hard you work, your newborn winds up with diaper rash.
Not really, no. That’s one that’s definitely worth it.
Flights with connections. Flying has become so tedious, frustrating, stressful, that saving money by spending yet more hours dealing with it, just isn’t worth it. I’d sooner cancel the trip
I saved $500 per ticket on an international flight for my girlfriend and I and the extra connection should have only added a few hours to the trip.
Then they cancelled my flight, and I got stranded in another country (Canada), spent over 10 hours in the airport getting a new flight, lost two days of the trip, which were the best days, lost the money I paid for the hotel for those days, and I only get a few days off a year and that was how I spent several of them.
The Europeans and Canadians on the flight got their flight comped. Being an American, I had to fight for a meal ticket that didn’t even cover the cost of two sodas. This was pre-pandemic too.
Oof 😭
I disagree because you can save so much money. But my limit is one short stop, unless I am flying to the other side of the world and need a few days’ break.
I’ve only had a flight delayed once on a layover, it was a few hours but meant getting home at 3 am instead of 11 pm and was fucking miserable. I can’t even imagine if it was 5-10 hours or a day. For a family of four we could probably save $400 on round trip cross country (USA) but I would rather pay and have a direct flight. And the shitty discount airlines are not worth a bloodclot in my leg when I can’t bend them for 3.5 hours…even an inch of extra room can make a difference when it’s almost 4 hours in a tin can.
I just flew for the first time in quite a while and honestly its not bad. Just make sure you follow directions and don’t cut it too close on leaving on time and it’ll probably be fine. Get to the airport 1-2 hours before your flight and by that point anything that happens you just ask the nearest employee nicely what to do
Except when your connection departs in 1h and there are 100+ in line for customs + other 50 in line for TSA checks. I still think they are worth it most of the time, but when flying internationally, I get why people tend to avoid connections as they can be super stressful.
Oooh yeah I can see where international flights can make that much harder. I’ve yet to fly international and was purely talking domestic
This is a little different from the others on this list, but a lot of DIY stuff for parties/weddings. The money you’re saving is negated by time lost, not to mention unless you have unlimited time/ no job and are able to thrift everything, the components for DIY aren’t that inexpensive. For my sister’s wedding, we did everything ourselves. Everything from literally painting the venue, collecting/creating every table scape, my dad built the stage and dance floor, all the way through setting up the hundreds of little desserts on the day of. It was all wonderful and lovely. And took a massive amount of time and labor across several families. When you factor in the value of people’s time, it was not less expensive than mine. We rented everything and it was so nice not to stress about dressing every corner of the room or decorating the bar, or making sure we didn’t run out of ice on the day of. We still chose super frugal options because the wedding industry is a scam, but we just paid for everything.
Sometimes it’s worth it just to pay people to do stuff. Value your time and mental health more than money.
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Well, presumably you also cleaned up and had some time together…
And interacted with neighbours and enabled a culture of reusing stuff that may have been thrown out otherwise.
You can donate stuff for free for the latter without wasting a ton of time.
That’s a good one, yeah, I have stuff to get rid of and some of it ought to be useful to somebody, but I just can’t see how it’s worth my time to hold a garage sale. All that time and dealing with people, just to get a buck or two for a few things, and still have to throw out the rest. It’s just not worth it
Not sure if this counts, per se, but Solar Panels. Specifically, via a loan.
My electric bill is insane, thanks to the powers of capitalism and monopoly. So I figured installing solar panels would be a good investment. Sure it takes ten years to break even, but I’d rather be paying my way through that than paying my electric utility.
Well, the problem I ran into was that the interest on a loan would effectively negate any headway I was hoping to make per month.
I still plan on doing solar, but not before either interest rates at least quarter themselves or I save up enough to practically pay for it up front.
Depending on where you live, the feed in tariffs are a scam as well, so you better make sure you use any power you generate instead of feeding it back to the grid (either by shifting use or installing a battery).
I don’t know much about residential, but I’ve been watching battery/solar setups for vans and RVs, and the cost of batteries to store power has been going down a lot.
I wonder if there’d be savings if one set up a “house battery” that only charged at night, then you use the stored electricity during the day.
Maybe hiring an electrician to do it would eat any savings, though.
Although, if one is more of a prepper than simply frugal, setting up a big “house battery” to smooth out electric outages due to thunderstorms or whatever might be nice.
Batteries could definitely be used to use cheap night time electricity during the day without solar. I think in some places you could even use it for arbitrage (use the grid market to get power when it’s cheap, feed it back when there’s more demand, etc).
Are you in the US? Are you factoring in the federal rebate? Are there any other state or local rebates you might also qualify for?
It’s still a terrible investment in the US if you are looking at it purely from a monetary perspective.
When I was looking at it, break even is usually just shy of 10 years, so let’s call it that for easy math. You install a $20k solar system, and you end up making about $30k over a 25 year life span, assuming you never have any major issues and never move out of your house.
In contrast, you could dump that 20k into the stock market. With an average return of about 7-8% (the historical rate of the s&p500) you’d walk away with about $110-140k.
There’s noble environmental reasons to do it, but financially it’s just not a great return right now.
Edited to clarify: You’d also need to be paying for electric in the second example, so minus 50k over these 25 years. You’re still up about double to triple over the solar panels.
The rebate is only as good as my taxes… so it helps, but not enough to make it a financially wise decision at this time. Similar story with the state incentives.
For myself I got them when rates were low. It actually saved me money instantly, swapping from a $300/mo bill to a $140/mo solar loan repayment.
Growing your own food. The only way to make that shit pay is to groom a cult to do it for you, large-scale.
The only way to make that shit pay is to groom a cult to do it for you, large-scale.
They’re called grand parents
Oh, I see somebody cracked the code.
I still buy the vast majority of my own food, but:
I’ve been eating the same $0.99 bell pepper going on three years now.
A $3 packet of jalapeno seeds has made a year’s worth of taco tuesdays.
I’ll never buy Mint again; I couldn’t get rid of my patch of peppermint if I wanted to.
I can grow much better tomatoes than what you’ll find at the local mega mart.
A $3 packet of okra seeds will thicken a year’s worth of gumbo.
My little vegetable garden, which is smaller than my living room, yields somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pounds of produce every year.
Respect for that - I was mostly trying to be funny with my post, I have to admit. If you have a good patch of garden, with good soil and conditions, I guess that can pay financially, and for sure psychologically. But if you have none of that… I have eaten too many shitty tomatoes grown on friends’ and neighbors’ balconies to be kind towards that anymore.
Apparently even touching soil has psychological benefits! Something to do with a certain bacteria present in it.
Growing your own greens and herbs is super easy with a hydroponic setup, but obviously you have to invest the time into getting it set up. There are a lot of pre-made options available these days, though, so it’s not as much work as it used to be even just a few years back. Saves me a lot of trips to the grocery store.
The only thing I’ve successfully grown is tomatoes. And they tasted weird.
Cutting sponges in half. It just makes them harder to use, and then already last a long time and cost like $1 each. I’m not going out of my way to save ~$1/month.
Unplugging electronics. I have a kill-a-watt meter and did some math. It took more power for my computer to run the spreadsheet than I’d save by unplugging everything in my house. Electronics have gotten way better at managing phantom power draw.
And I’ll second coupons. The only coupons I look at is the monthly Costco mailer, and I only really look at things I’ll buy in bulk. I try to buy enough to last until the next sale, which has worked out pretty well so far. But I literally don’t look at any other grocery store coupons because I just don’t find much value there.
In fact, most of these frugal “tricks” are worthless. Just focus on the high value lifestyle choices (cooking at home instead of prepared meals, learning to DIY common repairs, etc), and ignore most of penny pinching. In other words, don’t be penny wise and pound foolish.
That said, here are a couple of things that I do think are worthwhile even if the money savings isn’t huge:
- cut my own hair - takes 15-20 min once a month, which is less time than I’d spend getting to and from the barber; it’s essentially free ($20-30 for clippers, which I’ve used for dozens of hair cuts), but $20/month saved isn’t why I do it, I just hate going to the barber, it just seems to take so much time
- change my car’s oil - same as hair, it takes ~30 min, and most of that time I’m just sitting inside waiting for oil to drain; I don’t save much money, but I do feel like I save time vs driving to/from the oil change place, and I use high equality OEM filters
Never ever follow a cutting your own hair advice.
My mom was a stylist. She showed me all the tricks, so I can do skin fades and the like. The back gets tricky sometimes, so I’m glad mullets are currently trendy.
Yeah, this response is pedantic as fuck but y’all can’t make blanket statements like that!
Me and my wife cut each others hair, it works well and we both get compliments on it … but yeah, I can imagine there’s a lot of people out there who couldn’t pull it off
Unless you’re bald, then it’s the greatest one
im a baldo - it’s the only benefit. I’ve spent ~$100 on clippers over the last 20 years. Being bald will enable me to retire like one day early, so it’s been worth it overall.
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Why not? If you’re fine with a simple haircut, it’s really quite practical. I’m a guy and do a simple taper fade from 1" on top to 1/4" on bottom (similar to this).
My brother did it for years and he got to a VP level role at a large insurance company. If he did a bad job, there’s no way he would’ve gotten that kind of role because it’s as much about personal presentation as it is about competency.
I have my wife check it each time, but I don’t have her do it because I think I do a better job.
I’m a guy and do a simple taper fade from 1" on top to 1/4" on bottom
Same here, but a bit shorter than in the picture. I haven’t been to a hairdresser for at least 35 years.
Yup, mine is shorter on top and a little longer on bottom. I’ve never been a hairdresser, but my mom always did my hair and taught me, and I’ve had hairdresser friends.
The only time I’ll get mine done is if it’s a friend, otherwise it’s a waste of time and money for me. Yeah, a hairdresser is faster than me, but not with transportation to their shop, and the quality difference isn’t high enough to matter for me (I don’t care about my hairstyle, as long as it’s presentable).
Speak for yourself. I have long curly hair and if it’s all irregular, no one can tell. Every time I wash my hair it curls differently anyway.
No, wait. Let’s see where this goes.
cut my own hair - takes 15-20 min once a month, which is less time than I’d spend getting to and from the barber; it’s essentially free ($20-30 for clippers, which I’ve used for dozens of hair cuts), Where i live they do it under less than a $ ( i am a male)
If you really want to live frugal i suggest piracy is the way to go but maybe your morals don’t allow it.
I don’t see what that has to do with cutting hair, unless you’re suggesting literally becoming a pirate and not getting hair cuts at all.
But yes, I’m morally opposed to digital piracy, though I’ll do it if the rights owner is no longer offering the product for sale. For example, I’ll pirate most games for older consoles instead of buying used, but I won’t pirate recent releases. That’s where I draw the line for myself.
You can legally find plenty of content on Internet Archive and full movies on Youtube at https://lemmy.film/c/[email protected]
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
Ok. I’m still not sure what that has to do with what I said. Thanks for the recommendation though.
The cheapest food is always a massive rip off. It doesn’t matter if you’re willing to settle for something that doesn’t taste as good. The cheapest food has been stripped down to such nothingness that you need to eat 3x more to stay alive. It doesn’t work for the same reason you can’t just drink water and feel full.
Depends on what kind of food you’re talking about. Whole foods like potatoes, lentils and beans are filling, nutritious and inexpensive. Cheap processed foods frozen pizza are basically edible polyester.
I’m not talking about frozen pizza. I bought the cheapest bagels a few times, and they skimp on them so hard they’re like Sonic rings, and I had to eat two or three at a time. But they’re not half the price. So despite being cheaper, the daily bagel expense is higher than if I buy real ones.
So you’re saying that the cheapest example of a given food is not necessarily a good value? Makes sense.
The cheapest option is always cheapest for a reason. Incrementally so the amount cheaper it is than the average.
Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s cheaper for a bad reason though. There are often instances where the cheaper option can also be the better option.
Exactly. That simple can opener with a crank will outlast that fancy electronic one and probably be less effort to use. Sometimes simpler and cheaper really is better.
But often cheaper is just crap.
Those are different things though. The comparison is your trusted brand quality metal can opener with a crank vs the quarter of the price in genuine chinesium.
Yeah, they are different things, but they accomplish exactly the same goal. In fact, a simple chinesium can opener (crank or even no moving parts) could outperform a fancy automatic one in the areas you’re most concerned with (perhaps durability).
To me, frugality is more than just finding a low price on something, it’s about solving a need in the most price-efficient way. So I’ll compare based on need, not features.
Sure, but then the comparison also becomes pointless. That my shoes are cheaper than a used bicycle or a fully equipped modern car says nothing about either.
Frugality isn’t about individual products, but about lifestyle and needs.
Product X isn’t always better or worse than product Y, it’s all relative to your needs. For example, if I’m on vacation, I’ll buy the single use can opener from the dollar store instead of a nicer one that could last years. But if I’m at home, I’ll buy something that lasts a lot longer. Maybe you’d pick X in one scenario and Y in another.
As for shoes vs bike vs car, here’s a concrete example. I used to work about 10 miles away, and the company was located right next to a bike path that connects near to my house. My options were:
- bus + nicer pair of shoes - bus was ~mile from my house, and dropped me off right next to work - total trip time ~1 hour (20 min to the stop, 40min on the bus due to a transfer), a bit more in the winter (we get lots of snow)
- bicycle - 40-60 min year round (ride to the bus in the winter); cost $500-600 (dependable and has rack mounts)
- car - 20-40 min year round, depending on traffic and road conditions
Average costs over 5-ish years:
- walking - $100 for shoes + $4/day (no annual pass options; 250 days/year) for the bus = $1100
- bicycle - $600 for bicycle, $30/year maintenance (two chains/year, one cassette over 5 years), ~$50/year bus fare = ~$1000
- car - will have one regardless (need for road trips), so my estimate is something like $0.25/mile in extra costs beyond the insurance and registration I’ll pay anyway; so that’s ~$1k per year
So cycling and walking+bus are about the same price, and I can use the bicycle for trips to the store and whatnot, so I went for the bicycle.
If my commute was longer, the bicycle would be impractical unless there was a good train line or something. If I lived closer to work (say, 1-2 miles), I’d just walk. But for that situation, the bicycle was the cheapest long term option that met my needs.
I don’t know if you’re missing the point of the original advice on purpose or if you’re just in it for some sake of a social circle frugality. Regardless, please let me take advice from your verbosity and make it absolutely clear with my intention.
The point of the original post was that the money you save buying the cheapest alternative of the comparable range of product you have isolated as an appropriate solution for your predicament is likely a bad investment, for if it is priced way below the median - without being on a fire sale or some other reasonable circumstance - the shaving off the price must be in the production, be it in quality of said product or exploitation of producers, as there is always a price down the line, be it monetary from your own pocket for an early replacement product, or the collective cost of making life a little bit worse for somebody else on the other side of the globe. Agreed, the latter may or may not be of consequence for the subject.
The point in the follow up addresses that if you compare single instances relativistically across classes, you have no frame of reference if any of your selected candidates are of preferred cost/quality as there is no singular frame of reference. This implies a preliminary step of filtration of the range of products to compare, the very one that you’re showing through an example.
My advice is regarding the step following the iterative process of analysis and selection. That is, we’ve compared either shoes, bicycle, car, bus ticket, hitch hiking or levitation and have decided that the class of shoes will do the trick.
We now need to assemble a selection of candidates from our previously decided class of solution. And to complicate even more, shoes as well come in different types and ranges! A pair of hiking boots? Genuine Italian leather shoes? A pair of flip flops? Can we already apply the rule of thumb to not trust the cheapest option? Oh, let us not be hasty. Flip flops may well serve our needs, should we have good feet and our commute is short and vacant and we reside in a hot climate. If, though, we live in norse climate, other types of shoes may be more appropriate to trod through snow and water and ice and general grimness. I’ll leave it for the imagination to decide the subclass of shoes to be decided upon, personal preferences and all that, which shall not hinder the flow of this narrative.
It is now and only at this stage, now when we have already narrowed down from class to subclass to segment and subsegment and filtered out marked up brands and price ranges that are beyond our scope. Now that we have a handful of viable items of which we shall decide upon one pair of actual physical shoes we shall wear for this season and hopefully many more to come, it is now and only now that we can apply this final filter.
Our hypothetical selection has one pair of a highly reputable brand that are nearly four hundred money, but are whispered in the shadows to last a lifetime if not many. The middle section of a hundred to two hundred money a pair of branded shoes that all seem fair, and in the bottom end that one pair that caught our eye that are fifty money at full price with a brand name we’ve never seen before and can not find a single hint that they might be a snazzy eco friendly high ergonomy fair trade product that is breaking in on the market at a provocatively disruptive price point. Unfortunately, they are but an unknown pair of footwear at a tempting low price.
It is at this point we can apply the wisdom I wish to bring forth.
If the median is somewhere around one hundred and fifty money for a pair of shoes that fill our preset requirements, my words are that it is recommended to take in consideration why the price of both these outlier shoes are at such difference from the others in our list, and to make an informed decision based upon parameters other than the numbers on the price tag, for it may well be a deception with the savings of the lowest immediate cost as the difference may well present also the difference in quality, and likewise the expense for the top end may keep our feet dry and comfy for winters upon generations to come.
Yes, it is here that I wish to inject these words to remember.
What is cheapest, is always the cheapest for a reason. There is always a reason. Always. And in a market economy it’s rarely a good reason, except maybe in the short term for the monetary receiving end of the transaction. There may be the rare exception, but it will never be a bad advice to consider it for whatever purchase you make that is of some hint of significance.
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The way I’ve come to phrase this principle:
You don’t always get what you pay for, but you definitely don’t get what you don’t pay for.
It is a good permutation, with less opening for hypothetical hang ups and what is.
Sometimes items may be a loss leader and sold as a motivator…getting cheap shit in Vegas but not gambling, for example. Sometimes Black Friday products are inferior models…sure…but sometimes they lose money to make money elsewhere and you can be smart to use it 😊
I always thought couponing looked obnoxious.
I don’t care if I save $0.35 per grocery trip or $35. I really don’t. And I’m definitely not wealthy! But when it comes to all those valuable pieces of paper, I’ve decided I’m not making the cashier scan and verify them one-by-one, the people behind me in line wait the extra time, the bookkeeper add them up and send them in, and then whatever clearing house wage-slave collect and destroy them.
I realize that sounds judgemental, but that’s just my threshold. I genuinely feel everyone needs to decide how they want to live their life…
I worked for a big chain store. Like, a really big chain store, but not that one.
At the end of the night, they would collect all the coupons from the registers, weigh them, and throw them away.
The store would get credited based on the weight.
my grocery store’s app has a coupon section. I can scroll through them and add them to my loyalty card, so that they all get added to my order automatically. It’s at least as valid a use of my time as playing Crossy Road. I don’t use paper coupons.
Using things outside of their intended purposes. I live in a gated community with my folks. Our house borders an apartment complex community, the border is a fence followed by a hedge in our backyard. We have several fruit trees in our backyard including avocados and mangoes. During fruiting season, avocados will drop and fall over the fence. My mom uses a pvc pipe with a kitchen knife taped to one end to use as a spear to retrieve avocados over the fence on the other community’s side. 5+ kitchen knives have been broken by doing this. I recently bought a 30ft fruit picker to collect fruit before they drop, so hopefully that helps to alleviate the problem.
DOCAZOO DocaPole 7-30 Foot (30 ft Reach) Fruit Picker and Telescopic Extension Pole for Apples, Avocados, Oranges, and Other Fruit Trees https://a.co/d/hZUlhHK
frugal
> cant ask neighbors to come in and pick their avocados
> uses spears insteadno, that’s not frugality, those are signs of mental ineptitude
I should have clarified. She wants to retrieve her avocados that have fallen over the other community’s side.
Here’s a picture of the fence and hedge.
Here’s a picture of our tree.
The people who tell you that you are poor because you get coffee at a coffee shop every day. At best you would save ~$2000/year if you bought $5 cup everyday. $2000 saved would not be a significant amount of money to make in an investment either. Personal happiness isn’t worth trying to cut out things you like.
It’s all about context though. $2000 is substantial to much of the people who live on this planet. You’re right about that amount in investment returns would be considered small, but the people who this amount is significant don’t usually have investments to rely on.
Right but I’d you’re that hard up, you’re not going to be buying $5 coffee’s every day. Poor is relative.
That’s true, but I’d like to think the price of coffee scales where you live. A $5 coffee in Los Angeles is a $2 coffee in Madrid. So in general probably not a big difference wherever you are.
$2000 extra a year into a 401k over a lifetime of work is a substantial amount of money when you retire. This 401k calculator estimates it as $150k after 45 years. That sounds high to me but regardless $2k extra a year is a lot when you consider compound interest over decades.
you have to count inflation as well (although i believe us $ deprecates at a very less inflation rate) , but still the calculator you showed shows it can make 22% of total retirement fund
Plus I believe coffee is just a legal drug which is why its so prominent , and as such i shouldn’t use it
But who knows maybe i will drink coffee as well?
Plus I believe coffee is just a legal drug which is why its so prominent , and as such i shouldn’t use it
This is a good philosophy. I gained a caffeine addiction because I wasn’t aware that was a thing and now I don’t wake up in the morning until I’ve had something with a bit of caffeine. It’s not too bad, I just get a bad headache if I don’t get any caffeine, but I’d prefer if I’d known that caffeine addiction was a thing so I could make an informed decision when I started drinking coffee
Every model simplifies reality in some way. Inflation, fees, stock/bond mix, tax rates, risk tolerance, and the biggest one of all market performance are all variables that the calculator doesn’t seem to take into account to some degree.
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If you can’t make coffee at home, what else do you buy cos it’s “only 5bucks” everyday for convenience.
100% - you can nickel and dime yourself to death.
Sure it might not be a huge amount in one year until you notice that it’s not just a year, it’s the rest of your life. then 30 years later you have saved $60000 with interest.
It’s funny, the same people who told me the same thing spent their whole life saving money. 20 years later they are still saving money and haven’t once traveled the world, still live in the same general area, but still are still saving their money. For what? I don’t know. The most valuable commodity is your youth. Worth much more than $60k or $150k when your bones are withered.
You are on a frugal community dude, do you not get the whole point is convenient ways to save money. Making your own coffee or not drinking coffee at all is a very worthwhile endeavor. It takes about the same amount of time as drive to a coffee shop and get a drink. The only plausible thing I can think of is that you are being sarcastic. Otherwise just leave this community alone, some people actually need help and I don’t really think you would have any valuable insights.
Sorry, my bad. I got to the post from /all and didn’t pay attention to the community, for some reason my old brain thought it was ask lemmy. My bad. Delete my post :)
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I think you will be happiest of all if you deposit $2000/year in my bank account, what do you think?
