The Epitome of Frugality

[BC38]

I have been shopping thrift shops, rummage. estate , garage sales for the last 15 years or so, wish I had been doing for 45 years, so many quality items at a deep discount. About the only things I haven't found are work pants, work shirts, work shoes.
Drink more soda than I should, I've found the off brands when properly chilled taste mighty good on a hot summer day.

I've been shopping this way since the early 1980's, when I was too poor to pay attention. I still do it today.

I haven't bought a brand-new car in decades. I'm more than happy to let someone else take the massive depreciation hit on a new vehicle, then once it is 4-5 years old and has around 50k-60k miles on it, I'll buy it for half the price of a new one.

I end up with a "new to me" vehicle that is only 20%-25% worn out for around half the price of a new one.

I may not be driving the "latest and greatest" but it works for me...

 

[targetchief]

I may not be driving the "latest and greatest" but it works for me...[/QUOTE]


After about a month everybody’s driving a used car.


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[Ruger 13]

My nuttier-than-a-fruitcake B-in-L hid over $200,000 somewhere, then died in prison, never telling anyone where the money was. So in a sense, he took it with him.

I remember my Great Depression era grandmother breaking up the remnants of soap bars and putting them into a liquid dishwashing bottle to wash her dishes. She wasted nothing!

What was he in prison for?

 

[erikpolcrack]

One of my grandfathers used to say that very few things ever needed to be thrown out - many just need to be repaired or re-purposed. He also had a landfill at the back of his sloping property that he created with his coal furnace ashes and his lawn and garden clippings. (Some of the items that did need to thrown out are buried there.) That landfill still supports several trees and flower beds.

 

[Iggy]

Back before the turn of the last century, I had 3 uncles/brothers who homesteaded here in SE Wyoming.
They were 35 miles from Cheyenne and every 3 months they would hitch up the team and wagon and go to town for supplies.
It was a two day round trip.
Each of them would buy a nickel cigar for pure pleasure.
The first month back home they would smoke half of the cigar. The second month they would chew the other half and spread the remnants in a window sill to dry, and the third month they’d smoke the dried stuff in a pipe.
That’s getting a lot of mileage out of a nickel.

 

[erikpolcrack]

My paternal grandfather smoked a pipe and had done so even as a relatively younger middle-aged man, according to my dad and my uncles. The thing was, he never bought tobacco. He'd often get some as a gift, but would always chuckle about it and say it wasn't necessary. As long as anybody could remember, he constantly picked up cigarette and cigar butts and even raided and picked clean those sand-filled tobacco disposals outside of buildings and at work. He always had several tobacco pouches going, and would strip/crumble the new-found stuff into one of the ones he kept up on a shelf. When his current one was empty, he'd exchange it with one off the shelf and put the empty one on the other end of the shelf to await its next turn after it was replenished over the months/years.

 

[BC38]

After about a month everybody’s driving a used car.


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Exactly, buy a new one and its used before your signature on the contract is dry.

 

[johngross]

My dad told me his family was so poor they had to eat cereal with a fork to save enough milk for the next kid.

But me? I had it great! No matter what, my mother always made sure I had two choices for dinner. Take it or leave it!

 

[Bekeart]

Curbside salvage.

Found sitting curbside for free today.

Four drawer chest of drawers,
Is better quality particle board - nice metal guide rails on frame and rollers on the drawers.

I do not need - looking for a person with need.

Nice single speed ladies bike.
I flipped it over and checked pedals and brakes work,
Good tires.
Already gave away - a senior lady with limited income wanted a bike.

There was a very nice stroller - left since I did not have anybody in mind with need for a stroller.

Bekeart

 

[Rustyt1953]

My late miserly FIL saw a Queen Anne chair set out on a curb. He checked it out and being in good condition he put it in the back of his pickup. He put it near the sofa in the living room.

The bedbugs were a bonus.

 

[dave1918a2]

My folks were born in 1911 and 1914. They lived through the depression and after Dad came home from WWII He vowed to always have a home to live in and food to eat. He got it done. As I get older, I spend less and less as I need less and less to get along. Not frugal as some might be, but enough. Still have ammo and trap shells, and muzzle loader supplies.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

10 years ago or so I decided I wanted a recliner. Found a perfectly good one by the curb in my town. The window A/C in my bedroom is on its 9th summer or so, I run the A/C about 4 months. A made in Thailand GE unit.
Bought it for $45 at a Goodwill.

 

[Golddollar]

I don't understand the Depression-era mentality of utmost thrift.

I admit to having this kind of a mindset, and I was born after World War II. My parents, their siblings, my grandparents and the great grandparents I knew all lived through the Depression and/or World War II. And I had to work through a few employment hiccups. I have to work hard to overcome the "save everything" mindset.

My Grandparents grew up on farms in the old country. One had 9 and the other 11 brothers and sisters. Meat for dinner - maybe on Sunday.

Grandma had only old clothes and would mend a rip or patch a worn spot. When Mom bought her stuff for Christmas she would "save" it.

Grandpa sold his car when the gas exceeded 32 cents. They took the bus. Many fruit trees and a big garden in the back yard. They watched the water meter and when it approached the monthly limit, no more garden water. When the old 1950's B&W TV broke they would not buy a new one because it used too much electricity. No lights on after sundown. 62 degree furnace in the Winter.

OTOH, when grandchildren came to visit Grandpa always gave them money. But it had to be saved in the bank for college.

Their SS payments were meager, yet they still saved money every month. They had amassed a tidy sum, but Grandpa would not hear of anybody managing their savings. When they both ended up in a nursing home I will never forget the look on Grandpa's face when he heard they would need to pay $700+ a DAY for their care. Medicaid was not a possibility.

All that frugality, all that saving, all that time living poor, and in the end the Nursing Home took all their money.

And I feel bad for them. There must be some sort of middle ground where people can enjoy what they have earned without feeling like spendthrifts.

 

[Warren Sear]

Wail, we wuz so pore, one day we kids woke up and there was nothin' to eat. I said, "Mama, we's hongry. Wut we goan have fer breakfast?"

Mama put her bare foot on the table and say, "Corn flakes!"

 

[rockquarry]

I admit to having this kind of a mindset, and I was born after World War II. My parents, their siblings, my grandparents and the great grandparents I knew all lived through the Depression. And I had to work through a few employment hiccups. I have to work hard to overcome the "save everything" mindset.



And I feel bad for them. There must be some sort of middle ground where people can enjoy what they have earned without feeling like spendthrifts.

I've seen a number of family members who grew up during the Depression who lived the rest of their lives with that utmost spendthrift mentality. It must have been an incredibly strong influencing factor on many folks and the rest of us don't really know just how compelling it was.

My dad grew up during that time and a was a WWII combat veteran. He was never a victim of Depression-era thinking and never lived on the cheap. He thought money was to be enjoyed after you paid your bills and put a few dollars aside for emergencies.

 

[BC38]

10 years ago or so I decided I wanted a recliner. Found a perfectly good one by the curb in my town. The window A/C in my bedroom is on its 9th summer or so, I run the A/C about 4 months. A made in Thailand GE unit.
Bought it for $45 at a Goodwill.

Yeah, we have central air in our main home, but at our lake cabin we have a pair of "window shakers" that I picked up on Craigslist for about $150. We have one to cool the whole main living area and another that cools our bedroom.
When I put them in my wife said "WHY bother? We don't really need AC at the cabin, do we?"
HOWEVER, she came around last summer and really appreciated having them the couple of times that we spent a week or two there when the temps were in the 90-100 degree range.
We're headed up to there tomorrow and plan to spend the entire Holiday week at the lake.
We'll be making good use of those bargain AC units this week. They were a VERY worthwhile investment, even if they only get used a few weeks every summer...

 

[BC38]

I've seen a number of family members who grew up during the Depression who lived the rest of their lives with that utmost spendthrift mentality. It must have been an incredibly strong influencing factor on many folks and the rest of us don't really know just how compelling it was.

My dad grew up during that time and a was a WWII combat veteran. He was never a victim of Depression-era thinking and never lived on the cheap. He thought money was to be enjoyed after you paid your bills and put a few dollars aside for emergencies.

Nothing wrong with that mindset - as long as you set aside enough for emergencies AND to make sure your needs are taken care of in your old age.
I don't ever want to be a burden on my children. Young people have more than enough challenges.
Parents should leave their kids at least some inheritance, rather than leaving them with debt.
My parents, and my wife's parents left their children basically NO inheritance. I want to do better than that for my kids.
The "I'm spending my kid's inheritance" mentality isn't something I can subscribe to.
I want to enjoy what I have earned, but still feel it is important to leave my kids better off than my parents left me. I want them to have it better than I did. Not to say that I have ever really suffered want, but I still want my kids to have it better than I did...

 

[Golddollar]

10 years ago or so I decided I wanted a recliner. Found a perfectly good one by the curb in my town. The window A/C in my bedroom is on its 9th summer or so, I run the A/C about 4 months. A made in Thailand GE unit.
Bought it for $45 at a Goodwill.

That's great! I found the big metal desk in my home office set out on the side of the road for the taking. Luckily my cousin had his van and we went and brought it home. Then after I moved to this house I saw a notice of a complete kitchen set for sle on the grocery store bulletin board. I picked up a like new bench, hutch, and a big kitchen table with 2 leaves and 4 chairs, all for $300 back about 2005-2006. I still have all of this stuff and I'm glad I could repurpose them.

 

[BC38]

I still pick up other people's cast-offs and repurpose them.

Today I found a Scott's twin-rotor broadcast fertilizer spreader sitting in the median of I-90. I had to go to the next exit, and circle back, to pick it up, but it was worth the 10 minute detour.

Last November or December I picked up a 4' garden bench that someone in the neighborhood had set out at the curb next to their garbage can to get rid of it. The cast iron ends were rusty and the wood was all weathered and covered in peeling red paint. I figured I could salvage it and replace the wood/repaint the cast iron, and make a nice little bench to put on the porch at our lake cabin.

When our oldest boy passed away in February, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

I replaced all the wood slats with red oak and repainted the cast iron parts in Hunter Green to make it into this memorial bench that we will put in a quiet corner of our back yard.

The compass emblem with the Jeep grille and mountains is a drawing he did that he then had tatooed onto the left side of his chest. I bought a wood burner to reproduce his tattoo on the bench backrest - the first really "artistic" thing I have done in decades.

The little potted spruce tree in the first photo was on the stage at his memorial service, along with his guitar, his cowboy boots, his cowboy hat, and a photo of him. It will be planted in the corner of the yard next to his bench...

 

[Rustyt1953]

What a loving, lasting tribute.