I don’t mean like not buying makeup or stopping subscriptions or not eating out or other reasonable advice that would be given to someone starting their frugal journey.
I mean like over-the-top, can-barely-believe-you-did-that type things.
I want to know what the HARDCORE frugals do. I’m genuinely curious and looking for some outside-the-box thinking.
What’s the most insanely frugal thing you’ve ever done?
byu/Random_Username_4242 inFrugal
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Built a campervan to vacation in.
I sold all of my furniture and bought a camper. SO and I lived in it for 2yrs. Best decision ever.
I sold my car and became a bicycle commuter… in Houston, TX.
0/10 Would not recommend. Motorists actually *try* to clip you with their side mirrors.
I found a pamphlet at my library. It mapped out all fruits/nuts on public land in my city. Didn’t buy any that year. Close second was cleaning raw wool for crafts. Took all the finish off my table.
I once told myself I would buy absolutely nothing I did not need for an entire month. I remember finally checking myself when I realized I stopped myself from putting a quarter in a gumball machine because I didn’t “need” a gumball.
Walking to really distant appointments. Walking 12 miles (20km) takes about three and a half hours. Doesn’t make sense from a purely frugal perspective, but every once in a while it hits me when I see the Uber price and do it again. Listened many audiobooks this way though
Learned this growing up, emptying vacuum cleaner bags by hand and reusing them😊It’s something I always saw my mom do. Just bought a bagged vacuum again after using bag less for years, I will use new bags going forward!
Dumpster dived a broken umbrella to fix and sell
I once sucked a dudes dick so he could get me Outback Steakhouse gift cards.
I did not intend for this to be frugal, but it has turned out to be insanely frugal for me.
About three years ago, I decided to meal prep and eat beans for lunch every day at work. I did it mostly for health reasons. What I would do is buy a pack of dried beans, and cook it into some sort of big batch of food every Sunday. Sometimes it would be soup, sometimes it would be chilly, sometimes it would be falafel, sometimes it would be Chana masala, whatever. I would then divide it up into Tupperware and just eat take one every morning for lunch at work that day
I’ve been doing this for three years now, and I have been shocked by the time and money savings. A pound of dried beans cost about two dollars. You can also buy a 50 pound bag of beans for only $15. 1 pound of dried beans actually makes enough for five meals. I used to buy food at work which would be between five and $10. Now I am paying about $.50 per meal. I probably save 40 or $50 a week. $200 a month, $2400 a year.
On vacation in Thailand (which has super cheap food) I was so cheap, I ironed a quesadilla in my hotel room for dinner.
We’ve lived in an RV for nearly 4 years (family of 8 plus a dog).
With the low end rent for a 4 bedroom house being $2700/m, we’ll have saved $80000 in 4 years which we used to buy land recently.
Not super crazy but sometimes at work events they’d have a bunch of leftover food. I’d fill up tupperwares with the leftovers to get a few free meals.
Rewearing outfits (as long as they aren’t dirty or smelly!) to simplify the wardrobe and also lessen laundry.
Eating rice and beans on a regular basis because cheap meals.
Edit for more:
Taking the free sweet n low or coffee cream pods from work- not a ton because that’s shitty. But like a handful
Hoard cans and bottles because I can return them for 10 cents per can. This is actually a good deal, I’ve gotten over $40 a few times!
Keeping condiment packets for later use- Mayo, hot sauce, ketchup, anything really
probably my most crazy was taking the two turkey carcasses from both family thanksgiving and Friendsgiving to make stock with. It’s literally free. And i got a SHITLOAD of turkey stock from the two carcasses. If I had bought the same amount it easily would have been over $20 and not as good tasting! Our friends were a little confused and gave us some looks but ultimately were like go for it lol
Spilt my laundry soap and used dirty towel to clan it up and put it in the washer. Really couldn’t lose the soap
My husband and I were at a restaurant with outdoor picnic tables that were shared. We were chatting with a couple sharing the table with us and they left a nearly full basket of onion rings so we ate them as an appetizer. Who’s gonna let good onion rings go to waste?
I got divorced. It was a lot of money up front…lost half my savings, half my home equity, and half my 401k. However, within a couple years I had built all that back up plus more. He was a spender. I was a saver. Leaving him has put me in a much better financial situation than I ever was before.
Got a vasectomy before having any kids.
I scrape every morsel of leftovers from the pot. Will delicately rinse (bonus is remembering to save potato or pasta water!) so that every shred of home cooking is saved for next time.
*Still, wince when someone else tosses a couple of spoonfuls, luckily know better than to speak aloud of my …problem* lol
I pick up free furniture off the side of the road, fix them up and sell them on Craigslist. I feel being frugal is just not enough, needs to be profitable
Learned to make all of our carbs from scratch. Sandwich bread, hamburger buns, tortillas, French bread, hotdog buns, sourdough. All of it. My poor family had to endure tons of really shitty bread for months lol.
I cut my own hair.
I haven’t bought zip loc bags in a few years. Wash and reuse.
Not me, but my FIL reuses the water in his top load washing machine for the next load.
Not me, but my frugal late father….he was insane about saving money. He would go on vacation and collect cans in other states and bring them home in a huge garbage bag to get the nickel in our state (my mother was horrified). He also once got me new windshield wipers for my car when I was home on college break. When I went out to the car I noticed the driver side one was new and the other side was still an old one. When I asked him he said I only needed one (he had gotten it at the salvage yard) and there is no need to look out the other side of the windshield haha. He was the best. We had no a/c, no heat, no cable TV, very frugal meals of tomato soup and grilled cheese and the like, we all drove 20 year old cars at all times…but he sent all 3 of us to private college for cash and also left us money when he died…he’d been socking it away for decades. What a guy. How I miss him.
I walked everywhere and didn’t drive a car for 2 years.
Nowadays I still walk every day but I drive once or twice a month if I need to haul something heavy.
I lived in my car in college for like a month because the contract at wherever I was previously ended, and I was pretty broke at the time. This was my living situation during finals. I had a two seater Civic Del Sol.
It’s a product of me growing up poor but I still empty the S&P and ketchup packets from fast food joints into our regular containers.
Since I use Ibotta to scan my receipts for rebates, I often grab any extra receipts abandoned at the self-checkout. I would say about 25% of the time there’s a rebate that I can identify just by eyeballing it.
No dryer. Just like to hang up my clothes inside (I live in a cold climate).
Moved to a one room hunting cabin off the grid for $75 a month in rent. No electricity, water or sewer.
Did it for 3 years and loved it but eventually realized the life was a little lonely and the nearby town had no career opportunities for me.
Then COVID hit and land prices went up $200k over night.
So I moved back to the city to pursue a career.
I told my friend I would not be in her wedding, that I would not attend her wedding. I’m not dropping upwards of $2,500 for her nuptial performance.
I started cutting my long hair in a shag and like it better than previous haircuts. It’s been 5 years.
We are setting up a gray water system for our new manufactured home. Will be using all the laundry water, dishwasher, showers, handwashing water to water a new orchard and berries. I mention this and my whole family just look at me like I’ve grown two heads. We are also setting up a rainwater catchment to water our one acre garden. It’s a lot of water and if I can get it for free, why would I pay for it?
My father was very frugal. The way he walked wore the outer edge of his soles. So once the outside was worn down he would start wearing the shoes on the opposite feet.
Maybe this was more borne of poverty than of frugality: a friend and I went to the (fancy) museum café when we were at a museum, and got whatever the cheapest coffee/tea they had was. The people next to us had fancy sandwiches. They each ate half their sandwich and left the other half in the paper, untouched. They got up and left. My friend and I gave each other a look and both immediately grabbed those other two sandwich halves and had a great lunch.
Only bought one Labrador puppy when I could have bought 7
Sold used lingerie… I made back like 20x my initial cost on each item and saved on laundry.
Using clothes till they’re tattered
Do you remember that show about being frugal a long time ago? They cooked their salmon in tinfoil in the dishwasher while doing dishes.
If I’m being honest, the most insanely frugal thing I’ve done is shoplifting. This was 10 years ago or so. I wasn’t desperate, I wasn’t starving. I just wanted some things that I wouldn’t allow myself to actually spend money on like makeup or clothes etc.
Thank goodness I don’t do that anymore. I actually got scared straight by a security guard coming out and looking around the parking lot after I left. I think he was looking for me. Scary.
Don’t steal!
Canceled my internet and all online services attached to it. I live in a rural area so internet was ~ $110 a month. Got rid of that, got rid of all the streaming services. I didn’t have a large amount of data available on my phone so I pretty much stopped scrolling to save it for when I needed google maps and what not. The real trick to this tho was that I had effectively cut off 90% of the ads I was seeing on a daily basis. I stopped buying junk that I was influenced into thinking I needed, I didn’t feel the fomo anymore so it helped me to stop feeling the ✨ need ✨ to buy stuff. Got a lot easier to save money. If I was board I’d clean the house or read a book. Life was significantly less stressful. That being said once I was finally able to afford it again I got internet back immediately