Paul Hata asked:


The word frugality has left a more negative connotation for most people than simply being a saver, a cheapskate or tightwad. There is a thin line difference to saving and too much frugality to the point of being awkward and ridiculous. This is where the negative connotation comes from.

But if you are guided with the right principles and reasons in deciding to live a frugal life, you would never go wrong.

If you have decided to live frugally, no need to be worried of insults. Keep your head up high. And keep your focus through these tips.

1.Eating Out - Having gimmicks with friends on a Friday night is fine if you do it once in a while. But this can be expensive if you add them up at the end of the month.

2.Clothing - Naturally, if you are the kind of person who adores signature and designer clothes, do not expect that there will be something left of your take home pay. Instead of being trendy, wear clothes that can easily be matched with your other clothes.

3.Own Home - If you are planning to move out and find a place to settle, do not be overwhelmed by the excitement, instead be practical. As a start, buy a smaller house or try other ways like rent-to-own, do-it-yourself arrangements, and owner financing.

4.Buying Your Own Car - Shy away from sports cars or SUVs. Just stick to your purpose of buying a car which is to transport you anywhere you need to go. Check out also program cars like a new car warranty. Maybe this is not just the best time to replace your car with a new one.

5.Shopping for Groceries - As much as possible do not go with items that are branded. Choose non-brands and try looking for items on the highest or lowest shelves for best prices. Grab the opportunity and shop during sales or use coupons.

6.Family Out - There are inexpensive ways to bond with your family and be entertained like going to libraries, local parks, malling, picnics, visit friends and local church.

7.Buying School Supplies - Stock school supplies at home and do not buy anything fancy.

8.Be contented with what you have and try to live within what you earn.

9.Plan your Child’s College Education - Teach them the ways to be independent and self-supporting by encouraging them to apply for scholarships and on campus jobs.

10.Be Aware of your Financial Limitations

11.Anticipate your Failures by Planning - Have always a budget plan so you would avoid impulsive buying.



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Nicholas Tan asked:


The word “frugality” has left a more negative connotation for most people than simply being a saver, a cheapskate or tightwad. There is a thin line difference to saving and too much frugality to the point of being awkward and ridiculous. This is where the negative connotation comes from.

But if you are guided with the right principles and reasons in deciding to live a frugal life, you would never go wrong.

If you have decided to live frugally, no need to be worried of insults. Keep your head up high. And keep your focus through these tips.

1. Eating Out - Having gimmicks with friends on a Friday night is fine if you do it once in a while. But this can be expensive if you add them up at the end of the month.

2. Clothing - Naturally, if you are the kind of person who adores signature and designer clothes, do not expect that there will be something left of your take home pay. Instead of being trendy, wear clothes that can easily be matched with your other clothes.

3. Own Home - If you are planning to move out and find a place to settle, do not be overwhelmed by the excitement, instead be practical. As a start, buy a smaller house or try other ways like rent-to-own, do-it-yourself arrangements, and owner financing.

4. Buying Your Own Car - Shy away from sports cars or SUVs. Just stick to your purpose of buying a car which is to transport you anywhere you need to go. Check out also program cars like a new car warranty. Maybe this is not just the best time to replace your car with a new one.

5. Shopping for Groceries - As much as possible do not go with items that are branded. Choose non-brands and try looking for items on the highest or lowest shelves for best prices. Grab the opportunity and shop during sales or use coupons.

6. Family Out - There are inexpensive ways to bond with your family and be entertained like going to libraries, local parks, malling, picnics, visit friends and local church.

7. Buying School Supplies - Stock school supplies at home and do not buy anything fancy.

8. Be contented with what you have and try to live within what you earn.

9. Plan your Child’s College Education - Teach them the ways to be independent and self-supporting by encouraging them to apply for scholarships and “on campus jobs”.

10. Be Aware of your Financial Limitations

11. Anticipate your Failures by Planning - Have always a budget plan so you would avoid impulsive buying.



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Judy Turner asked:


Summer is in full swing and you want to make sure your kids enjoy it. Besides hitting the pools and playing at the park here are a few frugal ideas to keep kids of all ages happy.

Spend an afternoon at the library. Besides getting a welcome reprieve from the heat you can check out free books for the kids. Our local library offers offers free videos for rent as well as story hour and other activities.

While at the library be sure to check the bulletin board for other free activities being offered in the area. You may find lots of fun, frugal activities that were not listed in your local newspaper.

Take a trip to the SPCA. You can stop by to visit the animals and volunteer to walk them and play with them. Not only will the dogs and cats get some well deserved TLC but you and your children will feel great doing it.

Do you have a garden? Whether it is a vegetable garden or flower garden this is a great learning experience for your children. Get them involved and they may actually be willing to try some of the produce that they helped tend to. If you are limited on space you could try container gardening. Check online or your local library for more information.

Whether or not you have a garden you should visit your local farmers market. Not only will you find great buys but they often have free entertainment for the family.

Check out any free concerts in your area. Again this is a great activity for you and the kids.

These are just a few frugal ideas for making Summer fun for kids of all ages.



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Susanne Myers asked:


Very few things can bring more strife and stress into a family household than issues around money and not having enough of it to cover expenses and bills. If money issues or lack of it are taking away the joy in your life and you want to take steps to do something about it, start by banning the “if only” mindset.

“If only we could go out to dinner, I’d feel more energetic about the house cleaning that I have to do later tonight.”

“If only we had a new TV, then we’d have a more pleasant evening with the family.”

“If only I could purchase this nice expensive cut of meat, then I could make the family a really good meal.”

The “if only” mindset leads you to feeling unsatisfied with what you have and that is a dangerous place to be. Before you know it you’ll be spending what you don’t have which will only lead to debt.

The frugal lifestyle looks at making the best, most efficient use of the food, materials and resources that we have and is the counterculture response to the mass consumerism that is making so many of us crazy!

You don’t have to be an instant frugal living expert over night. There are many resources available to help you to find your way to the frugal lifestyle.

Let me give you an example. Cutting the grocery bill is one of the easiest ways to make an impact on your budget. The website (www.hillbillyhousewife.com) is a great resource for helping with food budgets. On that site you’ll a find a free guide called “Best Bets for Your Budget” and in this guide are tips for building your family menu around healthy food items that are always good buys at your local grocery or super store.

For instance, you might like sirloin steak, but let’s face it, sirloin is an expensive meat that is rarely ever affordable. So don’t collect recipes or make meal plans that include sirloin steak. Save sirloin for special occasions. Instead focus on recipes and meal planning that includes fresh items and other goods that are healthy and affordable where you shop.

One of the great features of the “Best Bets for Your Budget Guide” is that it includes a suggested list of items that can be purchased affordably in many stores. For example instead of the sirloin steak mentioned above you might focus on preparing tasty dishes using other more affordable meets like those suggested which include ground turkey, fresh chicken leg quarters and frozen trout and catfish fillets. Sometimes you just need some ideas to help to get you going on developing your own list of “best buy” foods where you live.

The Hillbilly Housewife website also offers hundreds of recipes specifically designed for the frugal cook.

Approach the purchase of materials in your home in the same way. Do you need that new flat screen TV or can you wait until you can afford it and make do with your old flickering TV mixed with some good family time together, playing cards, or sitting out on the back porch or backyard tent telling stories and enjoying the company of the people who mean the most to you.

Nurturing a strong appreciation for what we have both in our pocketbooks and in our homes and families is more than a frugal mindset, it’s a smart way of living that can lead us out of debt and on the road to finding real joy in our lives.



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Peter Cole asked:


Many excellent articles have been written offering useful, innovative tips on ways to save money. We’d like to take a different approach. Let’s look at what we call the “philosophy of frugal living.”

Don’t confuse “frugal” with “stingy”. What’s the difference? If you’re being frugal, you make use of the coupon in your Entertainment Book when dining out If you’re being stingy, you use the coupon as an excuse to under-tip the waiter. Being frugal is finding ways to save money where everyone benefits. Being stingy saves money at the expense of someone else.

Don’t make a budget and attempt to live on it! Instead, observe your spending habits over the course of a month and notice where your money goes and how the process feels to you. Are you spending a lot of money on something that you actually couldn’t care less about? Maybe you reflexively shop for a new outfit every Saturday. If you really love clothes, that might be exactly right for you. However, if what you really love is live theatre, your money would probably be better spent on show tickets and maybe even acting classes.

The point here is to pay attention to yourself and honor your own priorities rather than spending your money the way “everybody else” does. Some friends recently decided to spend a year traveling around the world. Needless to say, their travel expenses for that year were out of sight. However, they had no expenses for clothing (no job - hence no work wardrobe), Christmas presents or cards (an e-mail from Fiji to family and friends was as far as they went), or entertainment (finding themselves in a different country every few weeks proved to be plenty of entertainment).

Don’t buy what you can barter. As a young mother, I belonged to a baby-sitting coop. Members accrued “credits” by babysitting for other members. They could then spend their credits when they needed childcare. It was a terrific money-saving arrangement. More than that, though, it built a strong community with lasting ties between the families. Let yourself think creatively. If you love to decorate, cook, do photography, repair computers or do “handyman” jobs; you undoubtedly have neighbors who could use your services. See what they might like to offer you in return. You’ll be saving money and building friendships while doing what you enjoy.

Remember - generosity conquers fear. Often we focus on saving money because we’re afraid. We’re ruled by a model of scarcity rather than abundance. When you act with generosity, however, you master your fearfulness. Give a quarter to the homeless person, offer to help your neighbor move, bake that cake your husband loves that takes all day to make, smile at the grocery clerk (really, she’s going as fast as she can). Not only will you feel richer, you’ll find that it actually is true “cast your bread upon the waters and it will come back to you ten-fold.”



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Nicholas Tan asked:


The word “frugality” has left a more negative connotation for most people than simply being a saver, a cheapskate or tightwad. There is a thin line difference to saving and too much frugality to the point of being awkward and ridiculous. This is where the negative connotation comes from.

But if you are guided with the right principles and reasons in deciding to live a frugal life, you would never go wrong.

If you have decided to live frugally, no need to be worried of insults. Keep your head up high. And keep your focus through these tips.

1. Eating Out - Having gimmicks with friends on a Friday night is fine if you do it once in a while. But this can be expensive if you add them up at the end of the month.

2. Clothing - Naturally, if you are the kind of person who adores signature and designer clothes, do not expect that there will be something left of your take home pay. Instead of being trendy, wear clothes that can easily be matched with your other clothes.

3. Own Home - If you are planning to move out and find a place to settle, do not be overwhelmed by the excitement, instead be practical. As a start, buy a smaller house or try other ways like rent-to-own, do-it-yourself arrangements, and owner financing.

4. Buying Your Own Car - Shy away from sports cars or SUVs. Just stick to your purpose of buying a car which is to transport you anywhere you need to go. Check out also program cars like a new car warranty. Maybe this is not just the best time to replace your car with a new one.

5. Shopping for Groceries - As much as possible do not go with items that are branded. Choose non-brands and try looking for items on the highest or lowest shelves for best prices. Grab the opportunity and shop during sales or use coupons.

6. Family Out - There are inexpensive ways to bond with your family and be entertained like going to libraries, local parks, malling, picnics, visit friends and local church.

7. Buying School Supplies - Stock school supplies at home and do not buy anything fancy.

8. Be contented with what you have and try to live within what you earn.

9. Plan your Child’s College Education - Teach them the ways to be independent and self-supporting by encouraging them to apply for scholarships and “on campus jobs”.

10. Be Aware of your Financial Limitations

11. Anticipate your Failures by Planning - Have always a budget plan so you would avoid impulsive buying.



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Tom Tessin asked:


College can be a tough place to save money but if you know how to find the deals and how to save money, you’ll be able to rack up a lot more money than you could ever imagine. It only takes a little dedication and knowledge on how to find the deals. The sole purpose of this article is to show you how you can save a ton of money while you’re attending college.

Spot the food deals

When I attended college, I could always find the best food deals if I would take carry out orders instead of having them deliver to the dorm room. Most places will charge you about three to four dollars for a delivery charge plus a tip. If you cancel out the delivery charge, you’re paying a few bucks less. A great way to find a good eating deal is to look in your local school newspaper or circulars every week. Remember, it’s always best to save coupons; they can save you a fortune!

Check online classifieds

Websites like craigslist.org are a great place to find used furniture, TVS, games, and just about everything else under the sun. If you haven’t attended college yet and you’re looking for items to furnish your dorm room with, it’s a great idea to check your local classifieds to see if there are any good deals. Most sellers will let you pick up the items locally so this will save you a ton of money shipping wise if you bought something on another website like EBay.

Watch the phone bills

When you attend college, you’re going to realize that most people you start to call are going to be long distance. In today’s world, you can either subscribe to VOIP services or use free phone services like Skype. It’s always best to get your parents to download a program like Skype so that if you need to chat with them, you can call them for free and talk for as long as you want. If you don’t want to go that route, you can get a VOIP service for your room and pay around twenty five dollars a month for unlimited calls.

411 Services

The next time you use 411 services on your phone, think about calling a free service like that such as 1-800-GOOG-411. Google has offered a free 411 service that is free to the public and it is very easy to use. The system is voice activated and you can usually find what you’re looking for ninety nine percent of the time.

When it comes to saving money at college, there are so many ways to save. The tips above are just a few ways to save money. The best ways to save like mentioned above are clipping coupons, looking for special deals and comparisons shopping before you buy a product. Remember it’s up to you figure out creative ways to save your money. If you stick with this game plan, you will be saving in no time.



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Caroline Miller asked:


The Frugal Homeowner’s Guide to Home Security

If you want to keep your home safe but are put off by the cost of alarm systems, don’t despair. There are other devices you can use to keep your family and your property safe and secure and you don’t have to spend a lot. Here’s how:

Determine your vulnerable points

Before you set out to buy anything, check your house first. Go outside and look around, test your doors and windows for any weaknesses (old hinges, rusted locks, weak frames, etc.). Sometimes it’s as simple as replacing a few of your old hardware to keep your home safe.

Next, put yourself in the shoes of a potential thief. Imagine how you could enter your house unnoticed. Identify the most vulnerable points in your house - your front door, rear and patio doors and your windows. Another point of vulnerability is your garage or shed.

Install alarms

First things first. There ARE low-cost home security devices available on the market. These are usually the wireless systems which are easy to install and set up. Wireless systems are very popular because they provide the peace of mind that homeowners want at an affordable price.

You might also want to buy one of those small door-installed alarms that cost about $20 or less. Powered by cell batteries, once it’s turned on and the door is opened, the alarm emits a sharp warning to alert you. It’s cheap, unobtrusive and it works.

Bolts and locks

For doors and windows, you can install bolts and locks to reinforce an existing lock. As long as the bolt is solid and the hinges are properly screwed in place, you will have little worry.

If you have sliding doors that don’t have an anti-lift device, it would be a good idea to install one. Or, you could install two door locks – one on top and another at the bottom – to reinforce the hook lock.

The garage is a common point of entry for most burglars, so keep the door padlocked and the garage windows closed before you enter the house.

Keep the light on

Illuminate your porch, back door and garage. If you’re willing to spend a little, invest in dusk-to-dawn lighting powered by photoelectric cells. These save a lot of energy and will be cheaper to use than electric-powered lights.

Keep things thorny

If you don’t have a fence or wall, keep thorny plants and shrubs around. Plants like roses, holly and hawthorn have spiny leaves and thorny stems are great deterrents because they can produce punctures and tear at the skin. They not only provide you with security, they are also great ornamentals.



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Cheryl Johnson asked:


Everybody loves a nice, relaxing, vacation. The family vacation gives us a chance to focus on family and spend some quality time together. Unfortunately, sometimes the family vacation can be costly. Especially, if you have a large family.

Including a vacation in your plans can be a challenge on a tight budget. For those of you who want to get in that family quality time, yet don’t have the finances for an extravagant vacation, here are some frugal family vacation tips. Since the goal here is to get the most fun for your money, let’s talk about some frugal and low cost vacation ideas and tips that could be right for your family.

1. Camping: A great low cost option for families that enjoy the outdoors. Don’t worry, you don’t have to sleep in a tent. There are lots of state parks that rent cabins for a very reasonable fee. As an added bonus, when you are registered at a state park, you gain free entrance into all state parks.

2. Beach It: If you want to beach it, be sure to check out all your options for lodging. Sometimes a large family can do better by renting a condo or home for the week rather than staying at a hotel. Remember, you can save a tremendous amount of money if you can prepare your own meals while on vacation. A good portion of a families vacation budget can be literally “eaten up”! Even a little kitchenette in a suite can save you big bucks. If you’re campers, you can almost always find a campground near popular beach areas and get maximum savings on lodging.

3. Low Cost Lodging: Don’t forget your best resources, friends and family. Ask around to see if anyone has visited an area you plan to go. You may get lucky and have a “friend that has a friend” who maybe has a vacation spot they wouldn’t mind renting to you for a lesser fee. Sometimes people won’t rent out their vacation spots for various reasons, but don’t mind doing so if the tenant is a trusted acquaintance of a friend or family member.

4. Visit Friends and Family: Plan to visit friends and family that live far away, or even those that live close, and you rarely find the time to visit. In today’s fast paced society it’s not unusual for family and friends to lose touch. You’ll save money and get to catch up on what’s happening with friends and/or family that you haven’t visited recently. This will be fun for everyone and reinforce family togetherness.

Whatever you decide to do, if you’re traveling a great distance be sure to check all your travel options. With today’s soaring gas prices it’s not unlikely that you may be able to get there faster, and cheaper, in the air. Hey, maybe there’s a conspiracy here?

If all this just doesn’t fall into your category of “fun”, and you just have to have that exotic resort vacation, then at least be sensible about it. There are many great deals on vacation packages and off season rentals. And, oodles of travel agencies just waiting to tell you about them.

This is one area where do-it-yourself isn’t always the most practical advice. Travel agencies are privy to a lot of travel information, especially seasonal discounts, that you and I don’t have knowledge of. Do Your Research at least for goodness sake. You won’t be kicking yourself later when you come across that great deal you missed out on!

Check out your local travel agencies, as well as some of the many online agencies. Don’t forget, if you’re an AAA member you’re eligible for travel discounts. Before finalizing any plans, be sure to know your rights. What happens if you have to cancel? What is the deadline to cancel? Will you loose your deposit or is it refundable? Know your options.

Remember, the most important thing about family vacations is to spend quality time together. Have fun, and have a safe and happy frugal family vacation!



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Jesse Turner asked:


One of the ways we stay out of debt is to take frugal living to the extreme; we’ve already decided that following the conventional wisdom of the financial gurus just isn’t enough to make ends meet and to get ahead.

Some of the advice given is to keep track of where your money goes, or brown bag it, and that’s good advice, but, I don’t have that kind of patients - I wish I did, impulsive behavior has been a drawback at times - so, instead of keeping track of what I spend I’ll cut to the quick and not take my wallet at all, of course that takes care of the second issue “eating” as well, a great deterrent to fastfood.

The one piece of advice that I do like is to declutter your home because you’ll come across “found money”; finding money is always a treat, kinda gives you a miniature lottery winners rush, this is only good one time, after you’ve cleaned up your place - you could always trash out your house again and go for a really big score… wish it worked that way.

Most of my frugal efforts go towards the larger items on my seasonal list like, firewood; every year, at the start of the winter season, when the winds start to pick up there is a big call for tree service to remove blown down trees, alot of it hardwoods. I will offer my services at a greatly reduced price - free - no ones beaten that price yet. I can get enough wood for a couple of winters; some people will have the wood already bucked up for me and all I have to do is haul it away, at best I get a thank you and at the worst I only have to endure some eye rolling and maybe a crazy hillbilly comment(too true).

Extreme frugalism(uh, new word?) means having a closed system, where your wastes are recycled in one way or another otherwise your always going to have to pay out. A common example is composting yard wastes(grasses, leaves, twigs and manure) then using the decomposed organic matter in the garden come spring, and so it follows that after the havest ,of vegetables and other plants, you would turn under the plants to decompose to return nutrients to the soil; a closed system of continually reused organic material.

Ideally my household would operate the same way, paper products burned or composted, food scraps given over to the worms(vermiculture) to be redistributed as castings. All recyclables (plastic, glass, tin) taken to the dump to be sorted. Unfortunately, procrastination is a vice I haven’t totally given up, so, my closed system is still open ended; I’m working on it!

Specialization is a symptom of the disease, “I’m in debt up to my eyeballs and I can’t get out!”. The less you know how to do the more dependent you are on someone else, and of course, that someone else is going to charge you, “What the market can bear”, translation: just enough not to break your back. So, our system has espoused the virtue of specialization, great for the economy, not so great for your wallet.

It wasn’t too long ago(in the scope of history) that having the knowledge to perform alot of these things (making yarn, clothing, food production, building your own home, etc.) were all common place things that you were expected to know, now each is a specialization that only a person with the appropriate schooling could possibly perform - blah, blah, blah.

I’m reminded, almost on a daily basis, that there are other people that take care of those things, that there isn’t a need for me to know how to do this or that, and also being called a “Cheapskate” just as often. Recently when, in the presence of my niece, I was called a cheapskate, she said, “No he’s not, he’s just frugal” - redemption at last.



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