Living frugally without hardship: let's share actionable suggestions

You need to use significantly more spices in a pressure cooker vs. regular cooking. Start shopping the ethnic food aisles to buy them at a discount.

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I love the old phrase: Same house, same car, same spouse. That alone should save you thousands.

I think the biggest frugal tips while maintaining lifestyle is taking advantage of the skills or opportunities you have from your work.

My husband is a mechanic and he spent almost a year putting together a Prius for me built from scrap parts. He literally bought the body at a garage sale and there was a dog living in it. No motor, no battery. They were asking 500 dollars and he got it for 250. The hardest part was towing it. Then he waited and found a economical battery. With the help of junk yards he assembled what I called Frankenprius for around 1000 dollars. Two years later someone rear ended me and the insurance paid 5000 dollars. We spent about six months searching for a newer used Prius which I still drive today. When I get gas the attendant often asks, “three gallons? is that right?” I also pay less because I don’t need full insurance coverage and I certainly don’t have a car payment. The insurance company let us “buy back” the original frankenprius. He fixed it and still drives it today.

I work for a private school and my daughter gets free tuition, a 14,000 dollar per year value.

Other tips I would say is not just cook at home and make lunches but make a list and a schedule of meals so food does not go to waste. Food waste is a huge money suck.

As far as lifestyle I think it’s good to have one splurge in your life but not more than that. I like vacations and when people see my vacations they think I have money but they don’t see all the ways I’m frugal to pay for the vacations. You just can’t have it all, so pick what is most important to you.

Negotiate everything. My husband is from West Africa and when I first brought him here I told him, “No, you can’t go into Macy’s and say I’ll give you ten dollars for these sun glasses.” He didn’t listen to me and I was really surprised to learn that a lot of people gave him discounts just for asking.

There was a lot of discussion on internet and thankfully my husband’s negation skills rubbed off on me. I have never paid the non-promo price. You definitely need to be able to walk away but so far they have always sent me to retentions.

Finally, to feel like I’m being honest I have to throw in that there are a lot of things I really wish I could afford. I would like to shop at the fancy supermarkets, and I would like to have a housekeeper, but I just can’t justify the cost. I think the big take away is to live below your means so you don’t miss what you don’t have. My kids have never had cable tv, and they don’t beg for 200 channels.

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I usually prepare a few meals from one item. Like having a roasted chicken, using the leftovers for chicken salad and chicken soup. You can become very creative with your meals while saving time and money.

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If you have a chest freezer, you can stock up on turkeys when they start to go on sale in the coming weeks.

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I’ve never seen this option described before…very interesting!

Are there links you’d recommend for newbies to this combo? I’m wondering if this might be a viable alternative to family members’ $200+ a month cable/dish habits…

I like the instant pot too. There is really nothing like it. To save money, my family does a lot with rotisserie chickens. Instead of tossing the bones, we throw the carcass in the instant pot with carrots, celery, onion and spices and get a huge amount of chicken stock. So chicken stock is one things we used to buy often (for soups, rice, etc) that we don’t pay for anymore.

Throw a gallon of milk in there along with a pinch of gelatin, a tablespoon of pectin, a half cup of sugar, and a little bit of old yogurt and you end up with almost a gallon of new yogurt. Wait, theres more: you also end up with a good amount of whey which you can use to soak legumes. Soak legumes in whey for a couple of days and you won’t get gas. On top of that, it normally takes a very long time to boil dry/soaked beans, but the instant pot does that faster too. Kidney beans can be ready in 45 mins. Smaller beans like lentils are even quicker.

If you live in a bad neighborhood where you fear getting shot, the instant pot can actually sanitize needlenose pliers, sutre kits, and washcloths to hospital standards. So if you ever end up with being shot can’t report it to the authorities for whatever reason (I dont judge) and know a thing or two about performing amateur surgery, the instant pot is the best tool at your disposal hands down.

Disclaimer: stick to the yogurt and beans, leave the surgery to the pros.

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I did that in the past and took it a step further. I actually bought a meat grinder and made my own jeanie-o ground turkey. That was more of a hassle than it was worth. It was very nasty, it took a long time which made me worried about bacteria, and uncooked meat is very difficult to cut from bone. All-in-all I would not recommend it and I certainly never plan on doing that again.

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Not quite “cutting the cord”, but close:

I have FiOS with just “Local TV” channels. For some reason they continually give me a larger discount than if I sign up for just FiOS internet. I originally had the cable/internet/phone but found that the taxes and fees on the phone line added $20+/month. I transferred the phone to a free Google Voice and have an Obihai box for free phone calls if I ever want them [unplugged lately because who needs it].

So I’m paying approx $50/month for 50/50 internet plus the local channels. I have a cablecard for the TiVo and TiVO minis for my other TVs. Cablecard costs about $4/month and taxes add another $6 so my total is $60/month. There’s a hidden bonus feature to this arrangement that is “fragile” and I thought was a fluke, but I re-created it when I moved to a new house with new service.

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I just cut the cord. In 1999. Get strange looks when I go to Sams from the reps selling package TV/phone deals.

Pros - cheap.

Cons - my popular culture knowledge ended with Seinfeld.

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  1. Also been very happy with the Obihai, it’s an awesome replacement if your currently paying monthly for phone service and even if you’ve cut it already, I’m sure you could find value in having a dedicated home line if it’s only gonna be a one-off expense.

    Obihai is a VOIP device that connects to Google Voice. It requires a Google account to be tied to it, I used a secondary google account that I had, created a google voice number and created a new account using this device.

    With the exceptions of no emergency numbers, its working great as a dedicated landline. It also gets passed through Googles call filtering which at least for now seems very effective in curbing telemarketers. Paid rougly $40 for it and its quickly paid for itself in terms of value.

    The only thing that concerns me is their billing model is one time, meaning they’ll eventually have the same issue as Ooma. Revenue from new hardware purchases are able to support the ongoing infastructure, but this requires a constant stream of new users which will dry up eventually. Still if you get a year or so out of it I consider it a win.

  2. Standard Cord Cutting Replacements

    • Chromecast
    • FireStick + Amazon Prime Sharing
    • Netflixs Sharing
  3. Get your basic groceries from Aldi’s and Aldi’s Nord (Trader Joes) - The first time I went in one my mind was blown.

  4. Recently my strategy for most non-time sensative purchases has been

    1. List Item Type Somehwere (eg. Shopvac / Fridge)
    2. Research Item Specifics and Price History (Specific Product Identifier)
    3. Set An Alert Using CCC, eBay Search Alerts, slickdeals deal alerts, when the item is discounted.
    4. Review Monthly on items that haven’t triggered.
  5. Bought a Reel mower, no need for worrying about paying a monthly lawn care fee or seasonal maintenance of a gas powered mover. There is a bit of extra overhead in that I usually need to make two passes (once to pick up any branches and then once to mow it, but we have a small lawn so it’s not so bad) (It’s also more effective if your lawn is fairly flat)

  6. Seconding Prepaid MVNO’s. I’m almost always nearby some wifi, so I don’t even subscribe to a data plan which drops your costs substantially. I’m currently with PagePlus at what seems like $20~$40 a year with the amount of calling/texting I do. (Again no data) Stuck on a crappy device, but I would say 95% of the time, I’m surrounded by Wifi and another 2% of the time I’m in a dead zone anyways (subway/underground) If I ever was in a position where I needed data, I would probably swap out for Tracphone, but definitely would stay prepaid.

  7. Some things I have on my todo list, but haven’t had time to take up yet:

    • Chest Freezer
    • Weekly Meal Prep
    • Change Fluoresecent Light Bulbs to LEDs (Still waiting for the first set to die out, first world early adopter problems)
    • Steam link for gaming

Book Recommendation:

I recommend reading the Marie Kondo book @DaveHanson hinted at in the first post The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, the audiobook is fantastic, although you just need to google the one section about folding clothes as you really do need a visual.

I found myself much happier after reclaiming my space. The only thing I found myself disagreeing with was the section about culling non-perishables, as they’ll usually be out of sight anyway and its not worth the mental effort and time on restocking something like toilet paper monthly.

Freeing up my space has translated to freeing up mental capacity for me. It’s worked so well I’ve started looking into delabeling everything I own to remove even more distractions.

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[quote=“DaveHanson, post:85, topic:29, full:true”]

We found it to be a good alternative.

First place I would go is http://tvfool.com and input your address to see what type (size) antenna you need and if you should get an amplifier and where to point the antenna for best reception. This site has good information for getting started; OVER-THE-AIR DIGITAL TELEVISION RECEPTION FAQ: New to OTA? Start here! | AVS Forum.

For the equipment; Assuming I’m allowed to post links, this is the dvr: Amazon.com or you can go directly to Tivo website to purchase. (would highly recommend upgrading the hard drive if you record a lot of shows). We purchased our antenna here http://dennysantennaservice.com/hd_stacker_tv_antenna-html.html. But there are many ota dvr options and you could pick up a different brand antenna locally.

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Getting rid of cable. For me, that’s ~$110/month (and climbing) in my pocket.

My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.

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Deer season starts next month and i plan on putting enough meat in my freezer to last the year.

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Sodastream for cheap sparkling water. Of course, you have to feed it with a special hose attached to a cheap 20lb bar co2 tank, rather than pay up for the sodastream canisters. The hose is $100 one time, A 20 lb refill is $10-20 and lasts us 6 months or more, drinking a few liters daily.

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Isn’t that really bad for your teeth? I’ve read the carbonation makes the water/soda acidic and damages tooth enamel. Does it taste better than regular water?

We like it much better than regular water. I never heard about the tooth damage, I’ll ask the dentist.

It’s definitely less harmful than soda with sugar :slight_smile:

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Also available in a hoseless option I believe. Though I haven’t got one of these yet for my SodaStream

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Yes. The paintball tank is a good solution and ideal as a space saver for a small apartment, etc. We went with the bar tank because we already had one on hand. We drilled a hole in the countertop for the hose and the tank sits underneath.

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The sugar in soda is bad for your health in general so in that respect sparkling water is better. But teeth erosion comes from carbonic acid (CO2 dissolved in water) so it’ll lower the pH of sparkling water to cause erosion regardless of sugar content.

A lesser evil would be to carbonate mineral water that is softer (less acidic) because it contains a bunch of salts that will somewhat neutralize the carbonic acid. Commercial brands like Perrier have a pH of 6 which is close to that of tap water. But that adds to the cost compared to tap water. The best may be club soda which has added sodium and calcium salts enough to completely compensate for the carbonation. You can get somewhat of the same effect by just adding baking soda to tap water prior to carbonation.

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@luvbugium If you really want to save money, move out of New Jersey. :grin:

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