Just curious who else is living super frugal

[Mrs.SB]

May I reccommend a website called www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/ Have only just discovered it and it is full of meal ideas, menu planners and really low cost meals including vegetarian and vegan meals. A great resource!

thanks for this link!! i just checked it out and already see lots of new things i want to try!

 

[RatherBfarmin]

Hi all,
Sorry I am late to this post and all, but I must say I am incredibly happy to find others that live their lives frugally. For the longest time, my family were the only ones who did that kind of thing in the various areas we used to live (Dad is retired military). My parents started off young and pretty poor, so from a young age I knew nothing more than living simply (which honestly, doesn't bother me in the least)! Almost everything was second-hand or from thrift stores, and I can't tell you the amount of awesome stuff people just give or throw away...some of it had never even been used! I find it an adventure to find something incredible. For example, I ended up buying my wedding dress at a Saver's thrift store for $60. When I researched the dress it turned out to be a Michaelangelo from David's Bridal that retailed $1800!! Wow what a find!

As a kid my mom and I would carry around a black trash bag and collect numerous aluminum cans to turn in for a little cash...granted aluminum prices were quite a bit higher in the 90s than they are now, but we managed to rake in around $50. Not bad for just making the streets and fields look nice.

Couponing was a big thing my mom did as well. I do it where ever I can, but like someone said in an earlier post, 'they aren't as available now as they used to be'. God forbid companies let people save any money in this society >_>.

My husband used to be a big spender: no money, paycheck to paycheck, ate out all the time, impulse buyer, debt up to his eyeballs kind of person. This is not meant to cast a bad light on him. I love him to death and am just amazed he was so receptive to turning his financial life around (His family unfortunately never taught him a **** thing about finances, but luckily mine did)! Before I married him I made sure to break that habit. He knew right away I wasn't going to tolerate being in a mountain of debt for impulse buys and "keeping up with the Jones'" attitude many people in this country have. And as much as he disliked me for awhile...he came to thank me for it!

He (and we) no longer have any debt, I manage to keep the monthly bills quite low (all while living in the heat of West Texas) and we are both stockpiling money away in order to get our own parcel of land somewhere and start becoming more self sufficient! I am doing a bit of that now by having a garden in the backyard, but there's only so much you can do when you're in the military

...I can't wait to get out and have our own little flock/herd!

Kudos to everyone that is breaking the American trend of living in debt till they die. Debt may happen, that is true (hell we had $20,000 just from student loans!), but being smart and living simply can have that all paid off in no time!

And my dad always told me, "There's no greater feeling then not owing anyone a **** thing!" Oh, how right he is!

 

[Totalcolour]

I like to read historical novels, and I just finished one titled LONDON by Edward Rutherfurd. The reason I bring this up is because he describes in great detail how people lived during all of England’s economic ups and downs. It fascinates me just how bad things can get – how much people will tolerate poverty and deprivation. I wonder if we could find ourselves in similar situations, and how prepared we would be should we find ourselves as history suggests we could.
But, I’ve learned that deprivation is, sometimes, a state of mind. I am remembering a man who, during my early teens, was kind of like a segregate father to me. I would listen to many of his stories of his travels during the Great Depression. He ran away from home at an early age, and he traveled from state to state, looking for work. He did just about everything you can imagine. The strangest thing about his experience is that it was the best time of his life! So go figure – it was the worst time for this country, and the best time for a hobo. But he was young, healthy and with no responsibilities. I have responsibilities – most of us do.

You might also like one of his, published many years ago, "Sarum". It tells the story of Britain, from prehistory through WWII.

 

[DennisK]

Hi all,
Sorry I am late to this post and all, but I must say I am incredibly happy to find others that live their lives frugally. For the longest time, my family were the only ones who did that kind of thing in the various areas we used to live (Dad is retired military). My parents started off young and pretty poor, so from a young age I knew nothing more than living simply (which honestly, doesn't bother me in the least)! Almost everything was second-hand or from thrift stores, and I can't tell you the amount of awesome stuff people just give or throw away...some of it had never even been used! I find it an adventure to find something incredible. For example, I ended up buying my wedding dress at a Saver's thrift store for $60. When I researched the dress it turned out to be a Michaelangelo from David's Bridal that retailed $1800!! Wow what a find!

As a kid my mom and I would carry around a black trash bag and collect numerous aluminum cans to turn in for a little cash...granted aluminum prices were quite a bit higher in the 90s than they are now, but we managed to rake in around $50. Not bad for just making the streets and fields look nice.

Couponing was a big thing my mom did as well. I do it where ever I can, but like someone said in an earlier post, 'they aren't as available now as they used to be'. God forbid companies let people save any money in this society >_>.

My husband used to be a big spender: no money, paycheck to paycheck, ate out all the time, impulse buyer, debt up to his eyeballs kind of person. This is not meant to cast a bad light on him. I love him to death and am just amazed he was so receptive to turning his financial life around (His family unfortunately never taught him a **** thing about finances, but luckily mine did)! Before I married him I made sure to break that habit. He knew right away I wasn't going to tolerate being in a mountain of debt for impulse buys and "keeping up with the Jones'" attitude many people in this country have. And as much as he disliked me for awhile...he came to thank me for it!

He (and we) no longer have any debt, I manage to keep the monthly bills quite low (all while living in the heat of West Texas) and we are both stockpiling money away in order to get our own parcel of land somewhere and start becoming more self sufficient! I am doing a bit of that now by having a garden in the backyard, but there's only so much you can do when you're in the military

...I can't wait to get out and have our own little flock/herd!

Kudos to everyone that is breaking the American trend of living in debt till they die. Debt may happen, that is true (hell we had $20,000 just from student loans!), but being smart and living simply can have that all paid off in no time!

And my dad always told me, "There's no greater feeling then not owing anyone a **** thing!" Oh, how right he is!

I sure do hope you and yours do find a place where you can follow your ideas – they are very good ideas! During my youth, I made a very poor choice, concerning finances. My first wife and I were both not very responsible with money. What saved us was that I found myself in a very good company which gave me employment for over 36 years. What money we wasted, there was always more to take its place. But the poor choice that I made had to do with how I worked with my wife when it came to finances. From the very beginning, we had bitter fights over money; so to keep peace, I turned the whole responsibility over to her. I basically abandoned her when it came to finances. I concentrated on my work, and left the home to her. We were always deep in debt, and that is like having a giant parasite sucking the life out of us. Of all the great talents she had, accounting wasn’t one of them. She passed away in 05, and I had to file Chapter 13 to organize the payback of all our depts. Since then, I have managed to become completely out of dept. I managed to keep acreage on which I live, and I refuse to even take on a car payment. Life is so much better! Someone else is now in my life and she is even more tight-fisted with money than I am. But the great thing is that we work together when it comes to money. We get together and …. scheme over the use of our limited income. It amazes me what we are able to accomplish. So that is what I wish for all young couples – that they find a way that both actively work together with their money. It’s the both of you against the world.

 

[DennisK]

You might also like one of his, published many years ago, "Sarum". It tells the story of Britain, from prehistory through WWII.

Yep! Sarum is on my wish list. Amazon offers it in Kindle form for $8.99, but the author uses maps and diagrams (at least he did in London) and the electronic book I have doesn’t view things like that very well. So I will look for it in paperback the next time I am near a bookstore. I am also a fan of Ken Follett. I need to get my hands on his second century trilogy, Winter of the World.

 

[deserthomestead]

Quote:
My biggest dream is not to owe anything to anybody. DH and I are both still in school and between us have almost $50k in debt..

 

[DennisK]

My biggest dream is not to owe anything to anybody. DH and I are both still in school and between us have almost $50k in debt..

You are young and wages keep rising; so you can work your way out of that dept - If the two of you can work together. However, believe me when I say this: Don’t spend your youth in dept! Then, again ……. It may be that we will experience quite a bit of inflation sometime in the future. If that is the case, existing debts will be easy to resolve – if paying work can be found. The future is such an uncertain thing!

 

[newfoundland]

How I agree with DennisK. My youngest daughter is newly married and I must say it is a great sadness to my husband and myself that life is so hard for young people starting out. When we married, in 1970, we were able to afford to buy a house, on mortgage, although I admit we could afford little else. We saw our fortunes grow as the years went buy, moving to bigger better houses and not having to overstretch ourselves. Unhappily, this is not the story of our children's lives.

Our eldest daughter sold her London home and moved out to the country to a more modest life style as her husband is self employed and for a period of about 3 years the work just dried up.
Realising that they may lose the house to foreclosure they sold up to protect the equity they had in the house and bought a village house that reduced their mortgage from a thousand pounds a month to two hundred. Happily, they love their new life and my daughter has found work as a Parish Clerk, so for them it is a happy ending.

My son's rent increased by two hundred pound a month just at the time my daughter-in-law lost her job and they couldn't find anywhere cheap enough to rent on one wage. Luckily, we have a mobile home on our land and we are more than happy for them to live there and so are they. We have the joy of seeing our youngest grandchild every day. They are starting a fledgling business which is very brave in these uncertain economic times, but jobs of any sort are scarce.

My newly married youngest is more fortunate in that her husband is in the military and they have a rented house on the airbase. She however, was out of work for a year, but has found a job since moving to the airbase. It is her ambition to buy a house, to rent out, as security for the future. I believe she will achieve this as I never knew anyone, except perhaps my mother-in-law who could stretch money further.

We are born in the times we are born in, and for today's young people it is very hard. I would implore them however to take on only absolutely essential debt and keep these to a minimum. Don't make your lives miserable with money worries is my advice.

 

[Labmum2]

I can't believe this thread is so quiet. I LOVE frugality posts. We have to bring this forum back to life!

 

[MoonShadows]

I can't believe this thread is so quiet. I LOVE frugality posts. We have to bring this forum back to life!

That's funny. I was just thinking the same thing today.