How To Live Frugally

Although this is not my personal list, the writer does come up with some interesting ways to live frugally.

Drive our cars to death: People who are regular visitors to this blog may be surprised that I have listed this here since I recently confessed that we bought a fairly unfrugal car. Over the long run though, our car ownership turns out to be quite frugal. We take good care of our cars (regular oil changes, get necessary repairs done as soon as we possibly can etc.,) and drive the car until the wheels fall off – literally. The car we just replaced was 14 years old and had 165K miles on it and we drove it until the engine finally quit on us. Both our current cars now are pre-owned and we plan to use them (hopefully) past the 150K mile mark too!

Hang out with like minded friends: It’s not just how frugal you are, but who you hang out with. If all the friends around you are spenders, then some time or the other you will crack up and give up being frugal. In our case, we have been fortunate enough to have friends who are fairly like-minded. Even though frugality is not the core of our conversation or anything, we still end up making choices that do not require too much expenditure, and still end up having a blast.

I go grocery shopping when I am too hungry or too tired: Basically any time that I really don’t want to be doing grocery shopping. And I go only once a week, no matter what I remember/forget to bring. Believe it or not, this is the most efficient and money-saving way to shop. At least in my case, since I am ever curious and if I have the time, I will walk through all the aisles looking for new and strange items and buy them so I can “try them out”.

We don’t buy anything at the vending machines. Neither of us have the habit of snacking, but in Texas if you spend some time outdoors, it is usually very tempting to grab a coke at the vending machine. To avoid this temptation, if we plan on staying out for long, then during the previous day, we fill a bottle of water and shove it in the freezer. Next day we take the frozen bottle of ice in the car and generally we get to drink cold water (or at least “not hot” water) for the better part of the day.

We throw away the advertising mailers left in our mailbox without even looking. We only make an exception when we need something and know that it is possible to get a discount using the coupon in the mailer (e.g., haircut coupons – (gasp!) Yep, I use a coupon to get a haircut).

At least now I know there are people who are more frugal than me in this world! :P