frugality

One of my core principles of personal finance is “if you’re doing something by yourself, do it as cheap as possible.” When I’m alone and not worried about anyone else’s needs or concerns, I go super cheap on almost everything. There’s no real reason to “treat” myself because I’ll probably do some form of that the next time I’m spending time with others. […]

When I first started making financial changes in my life, I believed at first (and for a surprisingly long time after that) that the changes I was making to my life were largely short term changes. Sarah and I would “get ourselves on a good financial track” and we’d basically go back to the lifestyle we had before. […]

I’m a big fan of using the 30-day challenge to try out a particular daily routine or behavioral change in my life. It’s a big part of how I view life as being something of an experiment, one in which you’re constantly adjusting and trying new things. […]

One question that I left out of the mailbag yesterday is this one, from Dana: I find myself oscillating back and forth between frugality and spending recklessly. After a lot of reflection, I think the reason is that when I buckle down with frugality, I begin to feel “poor” after a while. I feel like I’ve intentionally cut myself off of what life has to offer. […]

A few readers pointed me to a Bloomberg article entitled How Much Money Do You Need to Be Wealthy in America? and wanted to know my thoughts. Before I dig in, I want to point out that the author of this article, Suzanne Woolley, did a good job of reporting on the results of the survey in question. […]

I don’t like to throw away an old computer unless it truly no longer works. A computer might not work any more for a specific purpose, but as long as it can still do something, I try to find a use for it. […]

At various points in my life, I’ve been really into the idea of getting myself into shape. I bought gym memberships. I bought exercise equipment. I bought workout videos. […]

I’ve long been an advocate for getting the most value for your dollar. I am very price conscious when I shop for most things. I constantly joke with my kids about how I’m a “store brand connoisseur,” and when they go to the store with me, they know I’m going to inevitably swap their breakfast cereal choice for the store brand version and that half of our cart will have store brand labels on it. […]

Let me offer up a little challenge for you. Make a list of every adult you plan on buying gifts for this holiday season. Your partner, your children, your parents, some of your close friends, extended family members… you get the idea. Now, go through each of those items and ask yourself how many of those people you’re not actually very excited to get gifts for. […]

If you look in our pantry at any given time, one thing you’ll virtually always find are about a dozen boxes of spaghetti and about a dozen jars of pasta sauce. If we ever run “low,” meaning we get down to less than a half-dozen or so of either one, we make sure to add it to our grocery list for upcoming weeks with a “(if on sale)” note by it. […]

Major technology manufacturers have been making it increasingly difficult for the average person to repair the items they produce. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, it’s us consumers who demand every new generation of smartphone be faster and lighter than the last. That doesn’t happen by magic. […]

One of my favorite tips to hammer home on The Simple Dollar is the value of shopping at secondhand stores. […]

My recent article on how to find and get the most value out of your local discount grocer led to a lot of great follow-up questions and comments from readers. One reader, Laurie, wrote in: What about coupons? I still clip coupons from the Sunday paper and use the Redplum and Target apps to nab coupons. […]

I’ve previously talked about how much I love the money-saving practice of self-massage. That being the case, I recently decided to treat myself by purchasing a top-of-the-line handheld vibrating massage tool. […]

What will this week be like for you? Will it be an ordinary week at work, with the normal routines? Maybe you’re retired and this will be a week like any other, with the usual tasks to be done. Will it be an ordinary week? Or an extraordinary one? This week, you could change your entire financial direction. […]

Last week, I published an article entitled How to Find – and Get the Most Value Out of – Your Local Discount Grocer that tackles head-on one of the tougher frugality challenges we all face: how does a person find the cheapest grocery store in their area and, once they do, how do they really get the most value out of it? This article generated far more feedback than I expected, with people asking f […]

At our house, we’re pretty strict on limiting free time for our kids. They get maybe half an hour of screen time after school (after their homework is done) and, on some evenings, half an hour after supper. […]

One of the most powerful strategies out there for saving money on your food bill (once you’ve cracked the real secret, which is that making your own meals and eating at home is a tremendous money saver) is to do most of your grocery shopping at a discount grocer. […]

Almost 40 percent of the food supply in this country never gets eaten, due to loss and waste, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (“Loss” refers to things like mold and shrinkage due to desiccation.) More than half of that loss and waste is due to the way we use – or don’t use – the food we buy. Stop throwing money away! […]

Let’s start off with a fact that’s “mildly interesting” on the surface, but takes on a whole different set of meanings when you dig in a little bit. The average American household spends $7,203 a year on food, of which $4,049 is spent on food at home and $3,154 is spent on food away from home. Let’s break that down a little bit into numbers that are more practical for how you and I live our lives. […]