Just curious who else is living super frugal

[Wifezilla]

In Colorado it has been ILLEGAL for decades.

 

[laseterlass]

Quote:
Yet another reason to stay and endure the winters here.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

We do a lot of frugal stuff too, but not really anything I haven't already seen here already.

 

[Blue Ridge Hillbilly]

We recycle the lint that collects in our belly buttons. If you wear cotton T shirts there is always fuzz in your navel after wearing a cotton T shirt. If you collect it each night before jumping in the shower and store it neatly in a small container, you can collect enough in a few years to spin into some fine quality cotton yarn. This yarn can later be sold or traded for chicken feed.

 

[In His Service]

 

[Five Points John]

Well we are trying very hard to get out of debt and become self sufficient. My commute one way to work is an hour and half depending on traffic, all highway, there are just no jobs closer to my home. We have one vehicle, I drive an SUV that gets about 30 mpg. My daughter still lives at home and her job is on the way to mine so we car pool. DH drives a company truck and has a gas card for it. We live on a farm, next door to my in-laws. We got chickens this year not so much for saving money, but for the self sufficiency aspect. We used to have cash cows and hogs until it got more expensive to feed them than sell them. But I am trying to talk DH into getting a bucket calf and a hog or two to raise for the meat. DH dumpster dives all the time. He's always around repo houses and traveling the local counties every day and comes home with wonderful finds. He recently brought home a lovely antique child's church pew that he found in the trash at a repo house. Most of our funiture is from yard sales. We found a genuine leather couch and love seat for $200 for the set. I bought 2 antique china cabinet for $100 each. We just bought our house, a ready made double wide and had it put on our property and took advantage of the 2nd home buyer stimulous money, we paid off alot of our biggest debts with that money. Our property tax is attached to our mortgage payment in an escrow account, so we pay a little extra each month on the mortgage but the full year tax is paid for in full when the taxes are due, and we don't have to come up with all the money at once each year, and since it's part of our mortgage we don't really miss the money in the day to day-you can't miss what you can't see. We still live paycheck to paycheck but things are getting better. We raise tobacco each year and that money pays off bills and buys Christmas for the family. We don't do vacations. Last year we started a garden for the first time and froze alot of the bounty-we are only now getting low on those veggies. I buy in bulk whenever I can. We wear our clothes out, and even those clothes that are starting to get too stained or have a couple of holes we designate as farm clothes and wear them only on the farm until they literally fall apart. I wear an apron every time I cook to keep my clothes from getting stained or splattered, cutting down on the laundry. When we moved into this house our electric bill was cut in half-from 200-300 a month to $100 a month, and water from 100-150 month to $20 a month. And that's with AC, electric heat, a dishwasher and an extra bathroom. I spend $200 a month in groceries for a family of 4 but that's a month or more of groceries. I'm still trying to get into the self sufficiency thing. We only started this year working on getting debt free. But when your job is as far from home as mine is, it's hard to cut out all the debt. I keep looking for something closer to home, but our county is highest ranked in the state for unemployment. A new study in the paper recently stated that 57% of the students in our school district are on free or reduced lunches. I have a degree in Accounting, Business Administration, and Economics. I'm either over qualified or under qualified for the jobs in our area. At least we live an area where the cost of living is low.
Sorry for the book-and I probably didn't add much to the conversation-but I have found alot of great ideas here. Thanks to all who have shared their ideas and hints. I plan on incorporating alot of them in my daily life now.
John and Alice (mostly Alice)

 

[mwhidden]

Love all the ideas! I would love to know how to get grain cheaper. Shavings, I found if I go shovel them myself at the local lumber yard it is way cheaper than buying bagged. I too shop at Goodwill, yard sales, dollar stores, watch the sale flyers, use coupons and buy in bulk when I can. Sometimes I split large quantities with family and we share the expense. I bake a lot from scratch and we are lucky enough to have a garden and 3 kinds of berries on our property.

 

[Raiquee]

EEMotherHen)

Both me and my husband work full time and we have a 3 year old and a 2 1/2 month old!

Hubby works 60-65 hours a week, I work 40, but commute 3 hours a day, so it seems like i'm gone 12 hours a day. We have an amazing sitter on a horse farm, and pay a lot in daycare. I manage to make sure there is a home cooked meal on the table, garden, spend time with my babies and on my days off I cook ahead of time. Ie: I make cookies, I make DS pancakes to freeze and re-heat in 30 secs, etc. I choose one big project to do on my days off, and do them! I do mini-projects during the week. I go "ok, tonight I am going to do the laundry." Or, "Ok, today I'm going to clean our bathroom." DH helps a lot too. Last night both him and my oldest came outside to help me finish planting the garden, weeding and mowing the lawn! We got it all done, spent time together and the youngest son was sleeping so he didn't miss much

.

I like how people are staying frugal...Me and my DH were "forced" into frugality, because well we didn't know how to live otherwise! We were brought up on a disposable lifestyle. Once we went frugal, well we couldn't go back. DH gets paid 20-25 hours a week overtime, and thats a lot of additional money. Together we bring in roughly 80-90k a year! We are definatly fine with money now, but that doesn't mean we need to inflate our lifestyle. DH wants to spend money, and altho I don't want to deny him, he is on a short leash. I manage the money and their is good reasoning!

We have some "Silly debt" (as i call it) of a credit card and car payment. We should have that payed off by the end of this year. Then we will still have debts (Ie: DH car, mortgage, student loans). I plan on having DH's car payed off by next year (he has a 2010 toyota carolla, so to have it paid off next year would be fantastic! We only bought it new cause he did the cash for clunkers and got double what he paid for his firebird in value to apply to the yota. Yotas last forever, so we weren't too worried about that. It will be the last new car we buy tho.)

We pay a moderate amount for health insurance through my work, but after the youngest is a bit older and not going to the doctor every month, I am going to take the higher deductable insurance. It will then only cost us $56 bucks for a family of 4! Instead of $345. I am going to put the additional $300ish in a savings account to reach our deductable amount, after that I will apply that additional money to our mortgage. I work for a hospital so our benefits for health are very nice!

 

[greenshade]

I've been making cold-brewed coffee since the weather got warm. It makes my coffee go farther and since I can't stand the store stuff, I spend about $11/lb. for whole beans from local roasters. I suspect that will go up (like the rest of the food prices). With cold brewing, I grind as much coffee as I would for about 8 cups in a drip coffee machine - about a third of a cup - mix it with about 2/3 cup of water, then let it set overnight. Doing this in a mason jar or reusing any glass jar. The next day I run it through a regular coffee filter into another jar. The result is a thick brew that is not at all bitter that is stored in the fridge. I can either cut it with ice and water or better, pour it over ice and add soymilk (I can't do regular milk). That little bit of coffee from the cold brewing can last me 3-4 days, maybe a whole work week. And I like my coffee thick - coffee you can chew! It would probably last longer for people who actually get enough sleep at night.

Although I'm getting more sleep now since the rooster departed.

 

[breezy]

I do that cold brew thing too.Its amazing how different it tastes isnt it ? I toss the spent grounds out into the garden or the compost pile