If you're haggling over the price of a bag of apples at the farmer's market, you need to get a life and focus on more important things.
You also should not be trying to score a deal by making someone who's not making much money take the financial hit.
You could save money by tipping 15% everywhere instead of 20% for good service, but that's coming out of typically low-paid and unbenefitted workers. It sucks as a way to save money frankly.
Sleep well at night, or at least earn the right to.
I've got a friend who is very frugal and that doesn't bother me too much. But when she sees an opportunity to save money --even if it's by having me pay more --she takes it. So since she is always looking for an advantage, I now make sure that in every interaction she's not taking advantage of me. In other words, she has hurt a good friendship and it's not the same.
Case in point: she wanted to go to the mountains for the day and I ended up driving. I didn't ask for gas money and I never do. On the way back, she said I should pay $3 more for dinner because hers was less. So I said, "that's fine, tell you what, you just put in $7 more and we'll call it even over the $10 in gas money you owe me." We settled on splitting the bill equally and I didn't ask for gas money.
Paul obviously has wayyyy to much time on his hands and needs to get a hobby or a second job to pay for all that coffee and high octane fuel. LOL!
Times are extremely stressful these days and we could all use a good chuckle now and then. Thanks especially 'tabitha' (comment #21) for really making me laugh...I needed that.
I forgot one thing. I have taken apart both Rayovac heavy duty and standard lantern batteries. Though they both had four F sized batteries in them the batteries in the standard 6 volt were only filled 2/3 full of chemical between the carbon rod and zinc can. Why do you suppose they say the heavy duty battery lasts 50% longer?
I don't think i'd forgo some sort of gathering or the announcements (in smaller towns, newspaper obituaries are free or really, really cheap - where I live they're expensive, but hopefully by the time I need to worry about it we can just announce it on Facebook). When my grandmother died, I wrote up a nice long announcement that mentioned every group she'd belonged to - church, social clubs, graduating class, the neighborhoods they'd lived in at various times - and we got a lot of people at the memorial (which was plain and cheap) who hadn't seen each other for decades, or were from different parts of her life and didn't realize the connection. I think it was a really good experience for my dad and his sisters to see how many people from the community remembered their mother - and themselves at earlier stages of their lives.
Also, the music she had chosen was a nice shared moment and spark for reminiscences.
The service is for the living, after all - and not all of my loved ones appreciate frugality as much as I do.
I have taken many 6 volt lantern batteries apart of many brands to get the carbon rods out of the zinc carbon types. I have never seen AA's inside, only D's or the F size batteries. It would be a manufacturing nightmare to get 32 AA's wired together properly. One time I took a Rayovac 6 volt apart and found four Duracell D batteries inside complete with their built in battery testers but no nub on the positive side. Most cheap 6 volts are made in China now and if you look on the bottom you can see slight indents in the plastic that show where the separators are inside the battery that keep the four cells inside from touching.
Some of the stories about my partner's frugality are so famous in our friend group, my own cheapskateness goes mostly unnoticed. That's kind of nice.
What's a little uncomfortable is because we have a little kid and avoid a bunch of expensive or environmentally unfriendly things (they're often the same) people assume it's because we can't afford it and give us things. Often people who clearly can't really afford it themselves give things to my son - the biggest is that some charity gave every child at his daycare a coat, because so many of the kids there are low-income. It's rude to say no, so we don't, but it makes me feel bad.
The other thing I've noticed is that it's the sudden conversion that is such a pain for people - we hardly ever drive and I'm pretty sure most people don't even notice (except for a few old friends who live in far-flung suburbs and have heard me & my partner try to figure out multi-purpose trips around our visits to them.) But if we used to drive out there for dinner twice a week and suddenly stopped in a fit of conscience, I'm sure they'd be hurt.
I got even !!, I'm still waiting for my belt since May 17th, I posted yesterday.Today, I took it back to Sam's Club without my receipt, told them Dyson's CS was horrible and I want a refund.I didn't have my receipt but they were able to pull it up on their system.I got a gift card for the whole amount I paid TWO YEARS AGO !
The best part was calling Dyson CS after I left Sam's Club.CS asked for serial number and said 'your belts should be going out soon".I said you know maybe you'll even get to put them on the machine, he said "what do you mean" I said the machine was just returned to Sam's when it gets back to Dyson, put the belt on yourself :).
So I had a free vacumn cleaner for 2 years .Now I'm gonna buy a REAL one.
Organic milk and foods taste way better without a doubt, because you aren't tasting all of the pesticides and hormones and antibiotics you get eating conventional food.
Get the best of both worlds...drink organic milk, but don't support Dean Foods. ORGANIC VALLEY is the way to go! Small family farms not large corporate owned farms. Still the great tasting organic milk!
You have to admit the advice is generally good. He was trying to pass along some tricks to save money using sarcasm (which I enjoyed). Thank you for the advice and I'm sorry the tone did not appeal to the masses.
Oh month to month leases are pretty common here. They're more expensive than the longer leases, though. 5 year contracts without the right of eviction sounds horrible. How do landlords do business there?
I agree with most things and I already live my life doing most of this. However, My car has an older engine, so I change the oil every 3000 miles as recommended... BUT I don't change it on the date they tell me. My father works for an engine oil manufacturer and he tells me this is bullshit. Thanks for the article.
I get the tone. Not everyone is comfortable with such a tone, though, but so be it. Nuff said about that.
About music, though... I often find that the "deep cuts' are the ones which appeal most to me in the long run. Without buying the whole (I date myself with this term) album, I would be missing out on some of my favorite songs.
Everyone should splurge (?) on the things they really value. Just don't spend your money needlessly. Isn't that the essence of frugality? Otherwise, one is simply being miserly.
What irks me the most is when friends are cheap when it comes to hanging with a group but splurge on themselves. One of my girlfriends closest friends is notorious for this. She has Apple everything, an expensive SLR, and a pretty new car(that her parents pay for). But she ALWAYS asks for rides, complains about not having enough money, and constantly asks how much everything costs. It sometimes brings the whole group down. I can understand if you are overall frugal but i can't stand when people are cheap around friends and spend tons of money of themselves.
I stumbled on this website and find the blogs/articles very interesting. I'd like a copy of this book too!!
You can sell your shirts and other goods on a garage sale.hehe NO NEED for investment.
If you're haggling over the price of a bag of apples at the farmer's market, you need to get a life and focus on more important things.
You also should not be trying to score a deal by making someone who's not making much money take the financial hit.
You could save money by tipping 15% everywhere instead of 20% for good service, but that's coming out of typically low-paid and unbenefitted workers. It sucks as a way to save money frankly.
Sleep well at night, or at least earn the right to.
I've got a friend who is very frugal and that doesn't bother me too much. But when she sees an opportunity to save money --even if it's by having me pay more --she takes it. So since she is always looking for an advantage, I now make sure that in every interaction she's not taking advantage of me. In other words, she has hurt a good friendship and it's not the same.
Case in point: she wanted to go to the mountains for the day and I ended up driving. I didn't ask for gas money and I never do. On the way back, she said I should pay $3 more for dinner because hers was less. So I said, "that's fine, tell you what, you just put in $7 more and we'll call it even over the $10 in gas money you owe me." We settled on splitting the bill equally and I didn't ask for gas money.
I agree with that guy who commented about the fair.
I ride a bike to work everyday. The only gas I worry about is from last night's chili.
I like it.
By "it" I mean me.
I AM AWESOME!
I didn't like the article though, too snarky.
Nice post with useful tips -- thanks for helping me to think differently by writing in a different style.
Amazing tips! Drawing more money from ATMs is really a good idea to spend more!!! What a thinking!!!
Paul obviously has wayyyy to much time on his hands and needs to get a hobby or a second job to pay for all that coffee and high octane fuel. LOL!
Times are extremely stressful these days and we could all use a good chuckle now and then. Thanks especially 'tabitha' (comment #21) for really making me laugh...I needed that.
Good article, thanks for posting. I also like the useful extra tips that some have added, thanks for that too other people. :)
I really enjoyed this article, reminds me of some of the things I use to do. Too much wasted money.
wow, way to totally miss the point of the article.
I forgot one thing. I have taken apart both Rayovac heavy duty and standard lantern batteries. Though they both had four F sized batteries in them the batteries in the standard 6 volt were only filled 2/3 full of chemical between the carbon rod and zinc can. Why do you suppose they say the heavy duty battery lasts 50% longer?
I don't think i'd forgo some sort of gathering or the announcements (in smaller towns, newspaper obituaries are free or really, really cheap - where I live they're expensive, but hopefully by the time I need to worry about it we can just announce it on Facebook). When my grandmother died, I wrote up a nice long announcement that mentioned every group she'd belonged to - church, social clubs, graduating class, the neighborhoods they'd lived in at various times - and we got a lot of people at the memorial (which was plain and cheap) who hadn't seen each other for decades, or were from different parts of her life and didn't realize the connection. I think it was a really good experience for my dad and his sisters to see how many people from the community remembered their mother - and themselves at earlier stages of their lives.
Also, the music she had chosen was a nice shared moment and spark for reminiscences.
The service is for the living, after all - and not all of my loved ones appreciate frugality as much as I do.
I have taken many 6 volt lantern batteries apart of many brands to get the carbon rods out of the zinc carbon types. I have never seen AA's inside, only D's or the F size batteries. It would be a manufacturing nightmare to get 32 AA's wired together properly. One time I took a Rayovac 6 volt apart and found four Duracell D batteries inside complete with their built in battery testers but no nub on the positive side. Most cheap 6 volts are made in China now and if you look on the bottom you can see slight indents in the plastic that show where the separators are inside the battery that keep the four cells inside from touching.
Some of the stories about my partner's frugality are so famous in our friend group, my own cheapskateness goes mostly unnoticed. That's kind of nice.
What's a little uncomfortable is because we have a little kid and avoid a bunch of expensive or environmentally unfriendly things (they're often the same) people assume it's because we can't afford it and give us things. Often people who clearly can't really afford it themselves give things to my son - the biggest is that some charity gave every child at his daycare a coat, because so many of the kids there are low-income. It's rude to say no, so we don't, but it makes me feel bad.
The other thing I've noticed is that it's the sudden conversion that is such a pain for people - we hardly ever drive and I'm pretty sure most people don't even notice (except for a few old friends who live in far-flung suburbs and have heard me & my partner try to figure out multi-purpose trips around our visits to them.) But if we used to drive out there for dinner twice a week and suddenly stopped in a fit of conscience, I'm sure they'd be hurt.
HA
I got even !!, I'm still waiting for my belt since May 17th, I posted yesterday.Today, I took it back to Sam's Club without my receipt, told them Dyson's CS was horrible and I want a refund.I didn't have my receipt but they were able to pull it up on their system.I got a gift card for the whole amount I paid TWO YEARS AGO !
The best part was calling Dyson CS after I left Sam's Club.CS asked for serial number and said 'your belts should be going out soon".I said you know maybe you'll even get to put them on the machine, he said "what do you mean" I said the machine was just returned to Sam's when it gets back to Dyson, put the belt on yourself :).
So I had a free vacumn cleaner for 2 years .Now I'm gonna buy a REAL one.
Organic milk and foods taste way better without a doubt, because you aren't tasting all of the pesticides and hormones and antibiotics you get eating conventional food.
Get the best of both worlds...drink organic milk, but don't support Dean Foods. ORGANIC VALLEY is the way to go! Small family farms not large corporate owned farms. Still the great tasting organic milk!
You have to admit the advice is generally good. He was trying to pass along some tricks to save money using sarcasm (which I enjoyed). Thank you for the advice and I'm sorry the tone did not appeal to the masses.
Oh month to month leases are pretty common here. They're more expensive than the longer leases, though. 5 year contracts without the right of eviction sounds horrible. How do landlords do business there?
I agree with most things and I already live my life doing most of this. However, My car has an older engine, so I change the oil every 3000 miles as recommended... BUT I don't change it on the date they tell me. My father works for an engine oil manufacturer and he tells me this is bullshit. Thanks for the article.
I get the tone. Not everyone is comfortable with such a tone, though, but so be it. Nuff said about that.
About music, though... I often find that the "deep cuts' are the ones which appeal most to me in the long run. Without buying the whole (I date myself with this term) album, I would be missing out on some of my favorite songs.
Everyone should splurge (?) on the things they really value. Just don't spend your money needlessly. Isn't that the essence of frugality? Otherwise, one is simply being miserly.
What irks me the most is when friends are cheap when it comes to hanging with a group but splurge on themselves. One of my girlfriends closest friends is notorious for this. She has Apple everything, an expensive SLR, and a pretty new car(that her parents pay for). But she ALWAYS asks for rides, complains about not having enough money, and constantly asks how much everything costs. It sometimes brings the whole group down. I can understand if you are overall frugal but i can't stand when people are cheap around friends and spend tons of money of themselves.