The Ultimate Cheap Guy -- Your Frugal Tips?

My old man fits the pack rat bill.

He’s the guy who when a neighbor is demolishing a building asks for the siding and internal supports for later use.

I’ve helped him build 3 additional out buildings and he hauled a local cabin that was to be demoed up to his property and has served as his wood shop for over 35 years.

He also just dickered with a local townsmen for a spare tractor and engine for his seasoned Massey Harris Pony.

I told him he needs to begin “thinning the herd” as I will not have a use for most of this.

He’s actually listening.

 

I'm still a sucker for chocolate, but at a much lower budget than my coffeeholic friends.

 

Speaking of mortgages ...

We bought a starter house only as big as we needed at the time, not as big as we could afford. Some years later, after losing a couple bidding wars on larger houses, we figured out that we didn't actually have good reason for a larger house, and quit looking. Larger houses come with larger operating / maintenance / insurance / tax costs, plus provide more room to store additional costly toys that we already don't have enough time to adequately play with.

In this area, property tax rates are high enough to eat away the entire property value over one's lifetime (when compounding is included), even without counting all the other costs of maintaining a property, and without the repeated commission and excise tax scalpings of every trade transaction. While some lucky property owners will benefit from outstanding appreciation, most will not. So a more expensive home is not really an investment for me, but rather a larger ATM account for the local tax collector. And local activists and voters keep piling on more tax levies.

Some people benefit from the forced savings of a home 'investment'. But those of us who can save and better invest elsewhere, are better served by just enough house to avoid paying rent to a landlord. A smaller house frees up considerable resources for better investments.

(PS. This viewpoint doesn't apply when you are the landlord collecting rent from someone else occupying the property.)

 

Yes, same for me.

 

We don't have the same issues with property taxes here: there are property taxes, but they're very low. Income tax and sales tax are the government's main sources of income. It's a big part of the reason our property prices are so high: basically, you pay a lot more here than you would in the US to buy your house (or to service your mortgage), but you make up much of the difference in homeowner spending with your property taxes.

So for us a house is kind of an investment - and ours has gone up in value a fair bit over the two years since we bought it - but that's not what we got it for: we bought it as a home.

On your comment about buying as big as you needed rather than the full extent of what you could afford, though..... When we applied for a mortgage to buy this house, the bank offered us about US$800,000 more than needed to buy this place. That meant we were in a position to buy something significantly bigger (and there was a nice place in that price range a couple of hundred metres away). However, this house has everything we could realistically want: it's a lovely place, with a great history and fantastic period features and the perfect layout for us, and it's in just the right location for us. And while the bank was right that we could afford the extra, we didn't want to go to the edge of what we could afford. What we've done is go for a mortgage that we can pay off at more than twice the necessary speed, and which won't cripple us if (when, let's be honest), interest rates rise. It's also put us in a position that if either of us loses our job, the one who's still working will be able to service the mortgage on a single income.

Loads of people here buy the most expensive place they can afford under current circumstances. And yes, your house might look pretty, but your living room and bedroom are a lot more relaxing and enjoyable when you're not living in a constant state of terror. It's the same as what we were saying about financing cars: keeping it like this makes life a lot more manageable.

 

It amuses to read words above, to the effect that banks are 'offering you more'. They are asking you to present a larger-diameter artery for exsanguination. It is their job to do that, and to make it sound nice.

 

Indeed. But it may mean they're not doing a very good job. The fact that we were offered a mortgage so much larger than we needed or were comfortable with alarmed me. Not from our point of view - we knew what they were offering us and why we didn't want it - but from the point of view of the industry as a whole. It's many years since the sub-prime crisis, and banks still seem to be in the business of getting people into mortgages that they can't repay. It really is inviting disaster. The whole Australian banking system relies on people paying back mortgages on their hugely-expensive homes, and at some point, that's going to come crashing down.

 

The most fearful websites (I have access to), quoting the most fearful economists, alarm that things are now just as tipsy as they were a decade ago. When a whole lot of money just went missing.

But it's not all missing, is it? Ultraluxury yacht-building industry is doing very very well.

 

Not only are things as tipsy as they were then; some countries' governments are working as fast as they can to deregulate the finance sector and get rid of all the safeguards that were supposed to stop such a collapse from happening again. But this should not be discussed on this thread lest it get sent to FHoPolitics.

 

I like a good deal like the next guy but I will never buy another car that doesn't have the options I would like to have just to save a few bucks.

 

First time I saw those was when we were staying at a hotel. It was initially impressive, but at the same time: what a waste of plastic and foil. All of it basically saying: you're not competent to measure out coffee, and clean up after yourself. Ugh.

My mom came home with one of these Melitta drip coffee makers, maybe 1967:


Plus the filters:



It's still available, and we've always got one, and have bought them for friends and relatives. Once in a blue moon we've broken the carafe, had to buy another, they're around $30 CDN.

You put a paper filter into the cone, then 1 measured scoop of ground coffee per "cup". Their idea of a cup is 5.5 oz though, so 2 mugs for me and the missus is four scoops, and you aim to get the level to the 4 cup line. The method is to do a first pour, just enough to wet the grounds, let it drip through, then a second pour, all the way up to the target cup mark, then stop and let it drip through.

We have a 4-cup cone we use almost all the time. The new ones come with 8-cup cones, which are a little cumbersome. I think you can order the 4-cup cones though, directly from Melitta. I contacted them a few years back and they said they sell direct. Sorry, can't find the contact info right now.

We used to have a separate tea pot, but maybe two decades ago when the last one broke, started using the Mellitta carafe for tea as well, works fine, and the measurements on the side are handy.

 

There are re-usable K-cup pod.

You put your own ground coffee. K-cup is just one way to brew coffee, and there are literally hundred of different brand of coffee and other hot beverages in this format out there. Some are really unpalatable, but there are some very good coffee too. If you use your own roasted coffee ground fresh, it's the best. That said, I don't use K-cup for brewing my coffee. My favorite is siphon coffee maker like this one. Have it blacker than midnight on a moonless night for this damn fine coffee.

 

I'm also concerned about the energy and water costs of washing plastic and ziplock bags. Watching others wash their's, it seems that many have no idea how much energy is really needed to heat that water, and likely end up consuming more than was needed to produce the bag in the first place.

I prefer to skip washing the bags, use them for food only a few times until I'm no longer comfortable with their condition, then either dispose or shift them to some non-food use where the bacteria content doesn't really matter much.

 

By far the best coffee I have ever made was with this:

AeroPress - Official Store, Replacement Parts and AeroPress Recipes

We grind our own beans (Costco) using a burr grinder and make a delicious cup of coffee in about 2 minutes, including clean-up. Because the hot water is in contact with the coffee grinds for a very limited time, the brew is smooth and without bitterness (think french press without the mess). The spent grinds are thrown into the compost bin. I recommend a reusable metal filter instead of the paper ones.

An ultimate cheap guy will also shop at a warehouse club. Too big of a package to consume it all before going bad? That's what your freezer is for! Portion out desired servings into plastic bags/wrap and pull as needed. Or grocery shop at Aldi's or Lidl.

Consider thrift stores. My wife happens to volunteer at a local outlet and has managed to clothe 4 grandchildren in designer clothes on the cheap (almost free). Many items still have tags on them. Granted she has first pick before they go out on the floor, but anyone could dress in style if you're willing to comb through the racks. The key, I believe, is to find a thrift store in a relatively well-to-do area because this is where they tend to dump their stuff (this particular thrift store is operated by a large church). The store also receives generous donations of almost-expired bakery goods from a local grocer. Those are free for the taking and freeze very well.

I make Clark Howard look like a spendthrift.

 

And here I just throw some grounds into a jar or water bottle, add water, and let it sit in the fridge for a day or two before filtering it.

I'm concerned about what starts leaching out of the plastic even before the washing.