Anyone here not really frugal?

I am an Amazon Prime member, I think it is $79 per year. I love it, I can order anything I want, at any time and never have to worry about shipping. 2 day shipping is free no matter how much you buy.

I guess this is an area that I'm not frugal. It would probably be cheaper for me to wait until I have enough to get free shipping; but I like the convenience of being able to order at any time and not have to worry about it.

We raise a lot of our own food. We wear a lot of second-hand clothes. We don't have expensive hobbies or needs. That said, I refuse to cut my own hair. I pay to have someone do that... Similar to Alan's comment about time and money, my pride is worth the cost of a good haircut... We do cut the boys' hair as a buzz is hard to mess up...

-Joy

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-Joy

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The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work. --Thomas A. Edison

Joy, I pay to have someone do my hair too. But I only have it done about 3 or 4 times a year, and generally cut only, not styled.

But everyone else in the house wears a buzz cut, so like you I do it! If you figure $10 a cut, 4 heads at least once a month (probably every 3 weeks actually), We're saving a good $50 a month on haircuts, aren't we?!

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A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something. - Plato

Now see, my two clothes-crazy teen daughters buy most of their clothes (deeply discounted, slightly used, or even new) designer jeans and such on Ebay. I long ago figured out if I simply gave them a certain amount of money instead of buying their clothes, they'd quickly learn to be budget-minded on their own. It's all abercrombie and american eagle here, but they don't pay but 10% of retail.

I love ebay. And Nordstrom Rack. I just bought my daughter a $180 pair of jeans for $30 there last week. And when she's done with them...onto ebay they'll go.

I'm not sure, is Plato's Closet local or national? My daughters love that place too. They have boy's clothes, but my younger son's idea of fashion is black carhartts and more black carhartts. With a hoody. And romeos.

$180 for a pair of JEANS? You've GOT to be kidding me?

My goodness, I'm so very, very happy that I had boys... and that they're perfectly happy with Levis or Wranglers, cotton tshirts and flannel jackets for the cool days!

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Ignorance is the true enemy.

I've seen the village, and I don't want it raising my children.

www.newcenturyhomestead.com

OK, Now we are talking savings.
I have no Children at home any more so I save bunches of money every day that they are no longer here.
My milk bill alone was staggering!
Don't even want to think about clothes.

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Corky

LEAD ME NOT INTO TEMPTATION. I CAN FIND IT BY MYSELF.

Yeah, we went through four gallons in the past week. I just bought three this evening and am hoping it will make it through a full week.
7 gallons of milk at $4 each makes $28 for milk in two weeks.
Ouch!

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A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something. - Plato

Pipe down, will ya? People will think I paid that much!

I also found a pair of Citizens jeans that retail in the same price range that some twit had bought and professionally shortened before returning them (Nordstrom has that amazingly liberal return policy). No big deal...they fit my 5'9" daughter beautifully as capris. I will say...those expensive jeans can be quite flattering.
One of my finds is a pair of Juicy Couture jeans for $34. They are studded with Swarovsky crystals and when I did a search of the number on the tag, I found them for sale at Saks 5th Avenue for just under $250. They are going onto ebay. Woohoo!

I made around $600 cash and cash value rewards from my cards last year. Might be a bit more this year. One of my favorites is Pentagon Federal C.U. Cash Rewards, 5% cash back paid monthly on fuel purchaes, and 1.25% on everything else. Another is Citi Drivers, for the 1st year I'm getting 6% back on groceries. I only have a month left on that one though and it'll drop down to 3%. American Express Blue Cash is another good one if you can run enough charges through it to reach the 5% tier.

I am considering taking advantage of several 12-18 month 0-2% balance transfers(you don't need a credit card balance but rather just have it transferred to your bank account) that I'm being offered and put them in my 5% HYS account.

I know a few people who are doing this and making 5-10k and more annual profit(after taxes). You need to have huge limits so your scores don't take a big hit from the utilization but it's free money with nothing out of your pocket by doing this arbitrage using the banks money.

I got my electric bill today. Just a bit over $28.

But I did spend about twice that on some electronic gadget parts on Ebay so today was a net loss I guess..

We have a Plato's Closet here and my girls have found some nice things. G&S

For some of us frugal isn't an option. DH is disabled and gets SS, I work full time. Half of my income goes for health insurance. Either we live very frugal or we don't have health insurance. Not much choice there although I know plenty of people who have made the wrong choice.

On the other hand, I don't mind being frugal. I consider it a challenge. By being frugal we've managed to live okay even the year our medical expenses exceeded my annual gross income. Wasn't fun but we made it.

I would never consider buying clothing at anything more than 1/2 price and much prefer 75% off plus shopping on Wed. and using the store card and being a "senior" getting an additional 15% off. A lot of our clothing comes from garage sales which my dd loves so I give her our "shopping list". We live in a small town and go to only local garage sales. DD lives in a larger city and goes every weekend. I seldom go to Goodwill because it takes forever to go thru all the racks to hopefully find something useful plus their prices aren't that cheap any more. I have to pay $100 for shoes that fit but I wait until the store has a $15 off coupon and buy only one pair every year or two. A new coat usually is a major planned expense every 8 to 10 years.

We put in a big garden. I can, can, can. Groceries are mostly purchased on sale because I keep a big pantry. Aldis saves me big bucks on groceries. Most meat is purchased in bulk on sale and for the freezer. I shop only twice a month when I get paid, but keep enough $'s back to take advantage of any special that might come up between shopping days. At present I'm trying to switch to once a month shopping because that will save more $'s and more time.

By careful saving we've managed to replace our furnace and central air with energy efficient models while taking advantage or utility company's rebates. We replaced our 25 yo fridge with an energy efficient model. We hang clothes winter and summer so see no need to replace our 28 yo dryer which we seldom use. Our washer is 31 yo and still works so no plans to replace it either. Our dishwasher quit working 8 years ago and we decided not to replace it. Our furniture is high quality mostly from auctions, garage sales, family pieces or just old stuff we've had forever and we see no reason to replace it just because its not in style or doesn't "match". (I would love to get rid of the 1970's orange lamps...if anyone's interested.)

Our cars are 1991 and 1999 and paid for and we're praying they last a LONG time. We keep them in good repair.

We do not go out for meals, movies, or much of anything except church. DH has his cable and I have Internet and that's our recreation budget. We go out to eat twice a year once in March for our birthdays and again in Oct. for our anniversary. We may grab fast food while shopping and order pizza maybe once every two months. No vacations for more years than I can remember. I love estate auctions and usually go to one or two a year and blow $30...on stuff I don't really need but want anyway. DH's blow money goes for Pepsi and microwave popcorn. We long ago learned to say to invitations to go out "yes that sounds like fun, but we can't afford it". We've also learned to say no to unnecessary gift giving and to limit the amount we spend on gifts. We budget $XX for gifts and stay within the budget.

I spend time at the library, on the Internet, studying and reading information on budgeting, saving, frugal living etc. because even tho I've been doing this forever I'm always looking for new and better ways to save.

We do not cut corners on our tithe or our health. In order to pay those two things we cut corners on everything else.

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This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Yeah, I estimated conservatively on mine because I just had that drop from 5% to 2% on my card. I was making upwards of $30/month when it was at 5%. I think this past month I made a little less than $20.

Last year I saved up and bought Lance a nice heavy-duty Porter Cable plunge router for his birthday. He was quite surprised - and even more impressed when I told him it wound up not costing me a penny - I used the credit card rebate. Plus, I ordered from Amazon and got a $50 GC for later use, put it on the Amazon card and got enough points to get another $25 GC from them. I used those GCs to help pay for my food processor Lance "bought" me for Christmas. He didn't pick it out because he thought I needed to do that, instead he just told me what I was to pick out!

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A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something. - Plato

That sounds like the Citi Dividend card. It was nice while it lasted. Mine has been sitting dormant since they dropped the interest, and they also converted it to a "flexible spending" "World Mastercard" that doesn't report available limits to the bureaus anymore. However, Citi has a deal lately called "Credit Protector" which is some kind of credit insurance you can sign a card up for. It can be found on Google. It costs nothing if there's no balance and you can cancel anytime. Right now they're offering a DVD player for signing up. I received mine 4 weeks later. It's a cheap player, would probably retail for $30 but it was free for a few minutes of my time.

I highly recommend that Pentagon Federal card if you make a lot of fuel purchases. The 5% cash back is credited every month automatically. There are no limits on the cash back. You just have to make sure you use it "pay at the pump" in most cases to get properly credited for the purchase. Penfed also hands out larger than typical limits which looks real nice on your credit reports. If you don't have any military or DOD ties, you can just donate a one time $20 to a military family association to be able to qualify for the credit union. They are one of the largest CU in the world. They have many attractive products and their mortgage division is one of the best around.

The reason banks offer these nice perks and especially the 0% offers is because they know the typical customer is going to end up carrying a balance and the bank will eventually profit from the customers usage, more than just the merchant processing fees. If you are a disciplined person who always pays their bill in full every month, you can make out real nice on using cards for everything you used to pay cash or write a check for.

Many people, the minute they hear "credit card" relate them to debt or living above your means. Granted, for many people that's exactly what they are and nothing else. What people like me and you are doing has nothing at all to do with debt. It's just a method of payment, running your usual monthly expenses through the cards before you pay them in full. We don't end up paying a penny to the banks but instead letting the banks pay us for just making our normal expenditures. Just about everyone has grocery, fuel, etc purchases every month. Why not get the discount if it's there? Especially with the costs of everything going up so much in the last year. 5% might not sound like much but in a years time it can add up to a considerable amount. I consider this one of the modern tools that helps me be frugal.

discover card does like 1% on everyday purchases but there is an extra cash back bonus that changes every 3 months...you have to sign up for each of them....Oct thru Dec right now is restaurant purchases *I think* you can go to the account center home page and it will tell you.....now I am curious and will have to go check them out!

April-June 2007 was Home and Apparel
July-Sept 2007 was Gas and Hotels
Oct-Dec 2007 is Restaurants and Movies
Jan-March 2008 will be Airlines, cruises, hotels, car rentals

I dont use my discover card much as we are trying desparately to get out of debt but I did manage to rack up a good $40 this year...hey that is $40 that we didnt have!!!! once we have the debt cleared, I plan on utilizing my cards to MY benefit not theirs!

Rachel

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If at first you dont succeed.....click undo

Playing the system for your benefit is the name of the game. Be it taxes or credit cards.

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Beware of radical christians: http://listverse.com/2015/03/22/10-p...e-for-america/

I'm frugal about not spending money at the stores but I'm terrible about wasting food.

I put left-overs in the fridge and I swear they disappear! I move them around while looking for something to eat and don't see them. Then the next thing I know Dh is throwing a fit while removing lids from storage containers and scraping the (now green) contents into the trash can. I've no idea where he finds the stuff because it wasn't there last time I looked in the fridge.

I'm good at stocking up though. I end up with LOTS of the same thing because "we were all out last time I looked in the pantry".

Pauline

I am frugal but not cheap.

Rarely buy clothes over $20, except for jeans which can go up to $25. There's a two year period where I don't remember buying ANY clothes.

Never did have a credit card, though maybe I should if I can get money back!

In the winter I keep my thermostat from a 62 high to a 55 low (gas furnace). Electric is cheap here and I use an electric blanket at night and portable heaters during the day.

I've always had just basic cable but it is $10 cheaper than it was because when I was really struggling 3 years ago I threatened to cancel it.

Amazon's used books are a GREAT savings, even with shipping and handling. Most things I get new or like new.

I regularly save 20-30% on my grocery bill and once in a blue moon even 50% by combining coupons with store specials, buy one get one frees etc.

I have a cell phone through AAA to be used for emergencies only. $10 a month, no contract, cancel any time without penalty! Can't beat that. .25 a minute, like I said, I rarely use it.

For cars, appliances and electronics - or most things, really - I research and get the most reliable, yet least inexpensive thing I can find. The net is my friend.

I'm frugal because I don't have enough money not to be. But I'm not a cheap tipper, and I don't order hot water only to ask for sugar and lemon. And a few weekends ago I paid $25 because I always wanted to ride a horse. Won't be able to do that every weekend but I am going to do that once in a while.

An old mechanic friend taught me a valuable lesson when I was younger. I needed a new car and was looking for another old beater. I ran into a new car I absolutely loved that was inexpensive due to having a few hundred miles on it ("program car"). Still, it was a new car - I didn't feel like I had the money for a new car. It was really cute, had a cubby for everything, zippy, great reviews for reliability. But I didn't want to make all those payments even though I could. Until my friend said, "what, don't you think you're worth it?" That opened up my whole perspective. It doesn't pay to be SO cheap that you sacrifice what would really make you happy if you're able to swing it. I got that car for $800 less than it was selling for, too.

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Wise enough to know I'll never be wise enough to know it all