In high school I had a beater car. It probably should have gotten a tune up right after we bought it, but we never did that. I can't remember exactly what was wrong, but it wouldn't accelerate quickly so it lead to a viscous cycle of me trying to push my pedal even harder and my car accelerating even slower. I finally realize this wasn't normal, even for an older car, and had it looked at. When I picked it up, the mechanic and I started talking. He told me that accelerating too much and braking too much is really rough on the car. Since then, I've only had one car which I've driven very carefully. I've constantly had mechanics tell me my car was in great shape. I never would have known any of this had I not had a crappy car that took me too many months to realize wasn't working the way it was supposed to.
What is a weird frugal hack that you don't think you would have realized if it weren't for a weird set of circumstances?
byu/Fit-Combination-6211 inFrugal
Posted by Fit-Combination-6211
3 Comments
Meal planning with mostly same ingredients. Id buy a whole chicken, roast it. Have chicken one day, then chicken salad the next or chopped chicken with Ramen, eventually making a small batch of stock with left overs and bones, then use soup stock and throw in rice and mixed veggies. One whole chicken got me at least 4 lunches and dinners while I was broke. That was many years ago but im pushing 60, and still stretch my food plans to the max. I can eat healthy for an entire week for under $100, usually less. Some weeks i just splurge guilt free, but i learned to be grateful for what I have in front of me. I made a very good life, married, kids, etc etc, i have nice things and ZERO debt….all because of what i endured and worried about when i was young.
I also had a crap car that chugged oil. After a while of buying 1 quart packs of oil I realized it was much cheaper to buy 5 quart packs of oil.
Walmart used to run sales on quarter hams. So while I had friend that would but lunch meat at the deli or buy the cheaper packs, these quarter hams would beat all prices.
But they were hard to cut up. Then I was told once to just take it to the deli and ask that it be sliced up and if they had time they would do it for me.
Then I started buying whole pork loins and would have the meat department slice it to the thickness I wanted.
But the wait got tedious when the deli was busy or the meat department was backed up and I would have to leave without meat more and more. I figured I needed to learn sometime. So I bought a sharp knife and started practicing.
I now just buy the whole pork loin or quarter ham and slice it all up at home. I also buy 10# chubs to cut up into quarter pound patties.