quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Anyone ever washed a paper plate and reused it?

Never washed one, but if it was just a sandwich leaving crumbs behind, I all the time just rub the crumbs off into the trash with a towel and save the paper plate for next time.

Buy these in bulk - we normally have 3+ months supply built up, then skip a couple of months to trim it down:

- Detergent / soap / shampoo / toiletries
- Dog food / treats
- Paper products (TP / Paper Towels)

Don't go out for coffee (ever), rarely go out to eat (1-2 times a month), make great meals at home for far less.

The real cheap thing we have is only 1 vehicle and it's been paid off for 10 years. We put about $500 in oil / tires / brakes / repairs in it per year (on average, some years only $70 for 2 oil changes, some years $1000 for brakes and tires, etc) and it just keeps going (2004 Honda Pilot). If we need to travel long distance on vacation, we think ahead and rent a car in advance cheaply. Last two times we've gotten a Suburban for 6-7 days for around $400 total. Yeah it's a car payment for a week of travel, but when I only pay that 1-2 times a year vs every month, you come out way ahead. The other side benefit of renting is if the car breaks, they get you a new one wherever you are - no dealing with repair shops on the road, etc.

You can also tailor the vehicle to the need and when it's all dirty, full of crap at the end of the trip, you turn it in to the rental place for them to clean up.

Now when it comes to ziplocks, paper plates, and solo cups, those are one use items.

quote:

I'll reuse ziploc storage bags unless the mayo has leaked out of the sandwich.

you don't wash them and hang them to dry?

We do and reuse them to put the litter box goodies in.

Put water in a clean milk jug when running water at the kitchen sink to drink later or fill the animal dish with water. We are on a private well.

Repurpose empty pellet fuel plastic bags for garbage or other things.

We grow and process and can a far amount of food. Hunt and harvest game and eat it most of the year.

Buy in bulk and separate and store for later use.

Will burn just about any wood or bark in my woodstove.

Buy on sale and closeouts when good products and a good buy.

The list goes on and on.

quote:

The real cheap thing we have is only 1 vehicle and it's been paid off for 10 years. We put about $500 in oil / tires / brakes / repairs in it per year (on average, some years only $70 for 2 oil changes, some years $1000 for brakes and tires, etc) and it just keeps going (2004 Honda Pilot). If we need to travel long distance on vacation, we think ahead and rent a car in advance cheaply. Last two times we've gotten a Suburban for 6-7 days for around $400 total. Yeah it's a car payment for a week of travel, but when I only pay that 1-2 times a year vs every month, you come out way ahead. The other side benefit of renting is if the car breaks, they get you a new one wherever you are - no dealing with repair shops on the road, etc.

Damn right. I used to love trucks, got a new one every two years. No more. The wife's '07 Pilot has been paid off for 8 years and costs us about the same per year as yours. My truck is 20 years old and long since been paid for.

I like to rip the tops off of my shampoo and body wash bottles to add water and get the last little bit of product out. I also cut toothpaste tubes open to get the last bit out.

Grew up with depression era parents. Hate to see waste. On top of that, I’m a retired purchasing agent. I read labels and complain about businesses that “profiteer” or take unfair advantage.

Drives my wife nuts.

I save small plastic containers such as yogurt, coffee, cottage cheese or whatever to use for fluid mixing such as paint or other things such as for computer parts when I build or take apart a computer.
Also take used toothbrushes to the garage for various use.

I have probably a dozen or so things that I regularly do that would fall into this category, however the reason behind them isn’t money savings, it’s really that I’m just lazy when it comes to going shopping.

For example- I’m very active outdoors, and subsequently this time of year my skin is usually pretty much wrecked. About 2 weeks ago the hand lotion bottle pump stopped working, so I unscrew it and twirl the straw thing around like a scoop to get more out. When that isn’t effective I’ll cut it in half and use my finger. When that doesn’t work I’ll probably just smear chapstick on my face and hands. Same thing with shampoo. Out of shampoo? Just use soap. It’s usually only when I’m completely out of soap does anything toiletry related manage to make it onto the grocery list. It’s not just toiletries though, if it weren’t for my wife/kids we’d only go to the grocery store when we literally had nothing to eat in the house.

Someone finally mentioned computer ziplocks. When we'd buy a new PC or printer, I'd always save the ziplocks, even the manuals came in them. They were several times thicker than consumer baggies. No holes or tearing out, they'd last forever if given the chance.

I also grew up with a cheap father who always tried outdo each other. I listened and learned, but not what they tried to teach me. They even said they lived through the depression, no one had jobs or money, etc,. I mentally called bullshit. More instructive were the other stories they told. It seemed they all had jobs, but that doesn't fit the narrative. Good God, they lived on a farm. Its got to be a pretty poor farmer to starve.

Other family members told how he ran a trap line to gather and sell pelts. He loved doing that. Sure, the family/farm gun was a .45-70 Springfield, purchased in 1904 surplus. The gun cost $1.50, but the first box of ammo was over $2 for 20! From then on they just shot .410 shotgun shells, except when killing a beef or pig. My grandson now has the rifle, but his dad won't let him play with it.

I don't believe the depression stories I've been told. Money was available, but the people had to scratch for it. Along with the depression stories are prohibition stories. My employer made enough to keep himself happy delivering booze. Guess that made him a bootlegger. He had other stories about how bad it was. I learned not to believe any of them, only to listen politely. It pleased him, just like my dad, to open my eyes widely.

I've always had champagne taste on a soda water budget, so I'm pretty good at finding deals and piecing things together. I'm a big fan of eBay and Craigslist. Even now that I make good money I find it hard to spend a lot of money on new tech at a store when I can buy it used (Except for things live TVs since they're relatively cheap in store, and I'm usually a generation behind in the technology and I wait for the pricing to come down) or wait a little bit for the pricing to drop. I very rarely get the "I have to have this now!" bug.

For example, I've had a home theater system since I was in my teens but I've never purchased a receiver new. I'm usually behind the curve on technology but that's never bothered me. I started with an old pro-logic receiver, eventually moved up to digital. Now I've got a Yamaha 5.1 receiver with Dolby True HD that I got with rewards points at my old job, I just paid the tax. My surround speakers are still my original surround speakers that I had and my subwoofer I purchased probably 12 years ago on clearance when I worked at Radio Shack.

I've done this with a lot of other things as well such as the alarm system in my home and my camera setup.

Get out of debt.

Don’t pay retail. Wait for a sale, especially Black Friday sales. Even for gun stuff!

Drive your car for 10 years, or longer.

Cook at home. Good thing I like to cook.

One thing I don’t do, however - I never shoot steel cased, cheap-ass ammo. Give me the decent stuff, please. On sale, of course.

I have been frugal all my life. Mainly because I seemed to have a hole in my pocket and I could never save any money.

So, I learned to do more with less. One of my missions in life has been to learn how to do stuff. So, I have worked as a carpenter, plumber, electrician, welder, mechanic, tree trimmer and teacher.

So, I have lots of “stuff”, hardware, parts of machines and a good selection of tools.

Rather than buying something I’ll go down into my shop and make it. If I must buy, I’ll search the classifieds.

Picking something off the side of the road is great entertainment and a true treasure hunt. Recent acquisitions include two compressors and a pressure washer. Locally we can put out oversized items for the trash once a week. Typical are appliances and mattresses. That is how the compressors and washer came home.

As far as soap slivers, they have been a puzzle to me for years. Squeezing them on to a new bar of soap seemed the solution, but they didn’t stay there. My cousin was OCD enough that he saved them in jars, for years and years.
So, my solution is to squeeze them on to a new bar, BUT when using that bar never scrub the whole sliver on the wash cloth. Only scrub half the sliver. There is enough adhesion then that the sliver stays in place and I can use it all.

Anyway, a quote from a friend fits this discussion -

“Living well is not a matter of having a lot of money, it is a matter of carefully spending what you do have”

Don’t know where he got it, but it is a good point.

I no longer own a car. I sold it (VW TDI) back to VW a couple of years ago and I don't miss it or the expense of owning a car in Arizona. (Insurance is high and so is annual vehicle registration tax)

I ride the motorcycle or use city Bus system, as I live a very short distance from a bus stop. .75 cents with a transfer gets me a two hour ride.

Cheap/Frugal = not being wasteful?

I haven't thrown away a piece of soap in probably 30+ years. When it gets down to where there's almost nothing, I will use a new bar of soap and then mash the old piece onto the new one and let it dry out until the next shower. I somehow manage to bathe and not have the little sliver detach and therefore haven't thrown a piece of soap away in YEARS. Guess it's just something I picked up as a kid because the old piece of soap was always attached to the new bar...

Others have mentioned cars. I drive cars until they literally won't go any farther. Had over 180,000 miles on my 1986 Mazda RX-7 GXL before it finally gave up the ghost, currently have 183,000+ miles on my 1997 Toyota Corolla, and my "fun" car, 2011 Toyota Venza, has just over 43,000 miles. I will gift the Corolla to a niece or nephew when I retire and the Venza will be driven until it finally quits...another 100,000 miles, I'm sure.

Harbor Freight is my "go to" place for cheap tools for the reloading bench. No need for Snap-on or Matco there, eh?

*Make a large Sunday dinner and plan for leftovers for lunch dinner next few days
*Eat less desirable meats (which we enjoy) - packs of Chicken thighs, bottom round, whole chickens, etc.
*Buy bulk, freeze foodstuff i.e. homemade jam
*Buy a car and keep 10 years or more, do our own maintenance.
*Make clothes last years / no shopping for new clothes and repair (sew) if they can be repaired
*Reuse screws, bolts, nuts, fittings. have an entire wall from my lifetime of projects and use them frequently
*Recondition tools - remove rust, oil, make workable as I've inherited, kids have abused, or I have found cheap but good quality tools

Too many other things but basically common sense, don't "keep up with the Jones.." and be willing to learn/teach yourself.

I prefer the term thrifty to cheap.

Shop online and buy at the end of the season for clothes or last years model for other items.
Buy a one or two year old car instead of new. Keep as long as it's reliable and still fits my needs.
Don't go into debt unless it's really necessary to buy a home.
Don't run credit card balances.
Basically don't pay a premium to be the kool kid on the block. With the internet you can find amazing deals on almost anything.

Cheap means making your purchasing decisions using lowest price as the overriding factor.
Thrifty means searching for the best value, i.e., performance or quality per dollar.
Occasionally cheap and thrifty intersect, and of course, the line between the two is subjective.

Being cheap while overlooking value often results in cheap being more expensive in the long run. This led to the saying, "Buy once, cry once."
E.g., a cheap house or car is not so cheap if it frequently needs repairs.

A few cheap/thrifty things I do:

I hardly ever buy new clothes anymore. I get almost all my apparel from thrift stores and yard sales. No, I'm talking about pleated Dockers from 1990. Everything I get still looks current and doesn't look any worse than something that's been worn & washed a few times. On average I'd say I pay about 5% of retail.

I flush after taking a dump, but in my bathroom I'll wait until I've pissed at least 2-3 times before flushing to conserve water. Unless the smell is strong, then what difference does it make?

I'm not afraid of eating things like moldy cheese or moldy produce if I can isolate the moldy part from the good part and cut it off.

My kids LOVE Chik-Fil-A sauce, so any extra we bring home and use at home on their grilled chicken or chicken nuggets.

I also smoosh all the soap bar slivers together and make a bar of soap of the sliver left overs.

Buy clearance and rebate motor oil and do my own synthetic oil changes, often for less than $10 per oil change compared to over $100 at the dealer.

quote:

Originally posted by ugeesta:
Brew coffee at home instead of going to A coffee house for an overpriced cup. I’m my own barista....

That's not being cheap, that's drinking better coffee for less.

Like above, I use the Costco chicken to make stock but not because of thrift but because it's so easy and so tasty. I do it when I roast my own chicken as well but roasted Costco chickens are convenient and fast.

I think I do many things that may be considered cheap or thrifty but I view it as things I do out of necessity given my budget, not because I'm intending to be cheap or thrifty.

Waste not, want not. I will pick a penny off the ground when I find them.

I guess one thing I do every day is keep using my coffee grounds or tea leaves until the result is indiscernible from hot water.

Laundry, I do it as infrequently as I can get by with. My work clothing gets washed daily the rest, well it must flunk the funk test. Towels rarely make the washer, only when I feel guilty about that half load to clear up all the dirty clothes.

I’m not much for throwing out food either, just made 6 lbs of elk jerky from NOS elk meat maybe 4 years in the freezer. Trimmed off the small amount of freezer burn and to the smoker it went.