Frugal

kiver said:
I am looking to be more frugal in my life. I am looking for suggestions to make life enjoyable but way more affordable
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Maybe give some more context. Minimalist living has been around forever. You have to find your comfort level on that spectrum. No debt, used shitty cars, cook all your own meals etc. Or buy what you want and accept the cost. "Free" activities for example fishing, hunting, surfing, hiking etc
 
Hard question to answer you can do a lot of stuff depending how tolerant you are Eat rice and beans every night take cold showers shut off electricity to your house ? Not sure what you are looking for ?
 
We are pretty frugal. Rather stuff the retirement plans and kick out of the rat race early than have a bunch of "stuff" - also when we need a thing it's nice to get a good/durable thing guilt free and not have to cave and buy a shit tier thing.

Lots of areas to save, but food is a good start!

1) Cook everything. Get good at cooking so eating out is something you do rarely and as a treat for the kids/wife/family. Seriously- all meals at home and try to do a good job at it!
2) No Starbucks or Dunkin donuts coffee. You can get great beans and grind/brew at home for way cheaper. Good luck convincing your wife of this.
3) Meal plan so item 1 is easier.
4) Leftovers are another meal. Lunch at work, another dinner, etc. No throwing away leftovers unless it was awful.
5) Buy meats when they're on sale. Chest freezers are cheap and cheap to run, and they hold meats as well as the grocery store. Make your own steaks when rib roast and strip roast are on sale at the holidays. We stock steaks at Christmas time when the roasts are on sale. Ribs on sale? Get 10-15 racks. Ground beef sale $2.99 once or twice a year, we do 50-75lbs in 1lb packages, wrapped in foil 3lbs at a time. Chicken thighs or pork butt at $.99/lb, load up. Check the almost-expired rack for sausages and freeze em. Etc. (Pro tip: smoked pulled pork vacuum seals really well! Smoked sliced turkey breast, too.)
6) Sale shop dry goods and freezable items; pasta, crackers, oil, canned tomatoes, butter, etc.
7) Lots of stuff that's brand agnostic is super cheap at Walfart and saves you going into that disaster often if you bulk buy; rice, beans, sugar, salt, flour.
8) Grow and preserve what you can, or buy things in season at a discount and make your own (healthier) food. Most of our veg comes from the garden in summer, growing from seed is cheap. Haven't bought pickles in years, fresh "pick your own" berries for jelly, seconds peaches are cheap at the end of the season and preserve well, apples too if you can find em cheap. Trade what you have a lot of with a buddy; we swap jelly for winter squash yearly since they take up a ton of room. We're lucky enough to have some sugar maples and make our own syrup- just tapped Sunday actually. :)

It takes some getting used to, but even with two small kids our food budget is tiny compared to lots of folks, and we eat well every day, and relatively healthy with near zero processed food. Having a mostly stay home wife on board helps a LOT. Last night was a great example; she had to take the kids to swim, I got home just in time to scoop broccoli cheddar soup from the crockpot and slice some homemade rolls that were cooling. Irish butter softening by the woodstove for the win. ;)

Hope this doesn't come off preachy. I'm cheap as hell most of the time, fully aware it's not for everybody! Just works for us.
 
@pernox touched on a lot of things. I think of it this way. Imagine how your grandparents lived their life.

We live a very simple life. We kill our meat. Grow enough veggies to last about five months. We cook our own meals. Make our own bread, crackers, granola, jerky, well.... you get it. We don't do this because we have to. We do it because we enjoy it.

Wet also live where we would vacation, so no need to travel very far. A tank or two of gas gets us to some awesome places.

Instead of throwing things out, we fix things. I do my own plumbing, electrical and construction around the house.

We take care of our vehicles so we can run them for twenty years.

And here is the big one. Our house is small. Our property is small. Homes around here are have gotten very expensive. I wanted to be sure we didn't get taxed out of our home as we aged and have utility costs and maintenance eat us alive.

Simple life is a happy life.
 
Palladin said:
Cut out:
Comcast/ pay tv
Cell phone
Dunks/Starbucks
Get a wood stove, chop your own wood.
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The woodstove thing is huge. Scrounging firewood is work, but not impossible. We've had to buy three log loads in the last ten years or so, $700 each. Two of those were when we first moved in and were using the wood boiler at ten-fifteen cord/yr. Scrounged the rest for the cost of gas and sweat. Spent some coin on a good indoor stove and chimney, but it has saved lots of hours that were well timed since we restarted our family with a couple extra kids. :)
 
kiver said:
I am looking to be more frugal in my life. I am looking for suggestions to make life enjoyable but way more affordable
Click to expand...
Green screen and heat lamps. You can pretend you are on some vacation location with palm trees, beaches, and mixed drinks. Then do hot dogs and beans for supper a few times per week. Splurge for pizza occasionally to keep her happy.
 
I won’t give frugality advice cause you’ve gotten good advice already, but I’ll say that if you have any investments, devote some time and effort to understanding them. People will spend thousands of ours researching hobbies but won’t spend an hour reading about how to invest. Yet it’s probably the most important financial decisions you can make, besides picking a spouse.
 
Varmint said:
I won’t give frugality advice cause you’ve gotten good advice already, but I’ll say that if you have any investments, devote some time and effort to understanding them. People will spend thousands of ours researching hobbies but won’t spend an hour reading about how to invest. Yet it’s probably the most important financial decisions you can make, besides picking a spouse.
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I’m guilty of this.
 
Varmint said:
I won’t give frugality advice cause you’ve gotten good advice already, but I’ll say that if you have any investments, devote some time and effort to understanding them. People will spend thousands of ours researching hobbies but won’t spend an hour reading about how to invest. Yet it’s probably the most important financial decisions you can make, besides picking a spouse.
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On my shit on a daily basis. Lol
 
peterk123 said:
And here is the big one. Our house is small. Our property is small. Homes around here are have gotten very expensive. I wanted to be sure we didn't get taxed out of our home as we aged and have utility costs and maintenance eat us alive.

Simple life is a happy life.
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This is huge, no pun intended
I'm now an empty nester in an appropriately 4k gross SF home on a cul de sac, it is front and center in my mind.
Needs paint every 10 years - last quote was 12k not including fixing some rot over a garage door transom window.
Taxes hit 7k with no end in sight.

Conversations with the wife are going from downsize and enjoy to "what about when we have grandkids"

If we keep the house I'll probably need to work till 65.
Downsize to a single story 1200-1500 SF and I can punch out by 60.

Housing is likely the best place to make frugal choices.
 

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