Inspired by my practical grandfather I’d occasionally rip paper towels neatly in half after calculating I did not need to full surface area for the clean up job at hand.
He committed further with a pile of neatly folded and ripped paper towels in a bowl ready for use.
Getting a few big financial decisions right is of far more value than a mentality of frugality or yes, true cheapness on smaller stuff especially when it pertains to how we treat others and make them feel with gifts and acts of kindness.
Our family has traveled quite a bit over the years. This has always meant looking for deals, usually for lodging. I knew it went too far when we stayed in a motel just outside of Chicago in a sketchy area, and were afraid to even get under the covers of the bed! All I could think was this was a rent by the hour place and who knows what was left behind, ugggh. To be fair it was a late night find and we were just exhausted and needed a quick layover. From then on though my kids were always interested in the places I booked, and quick to give me an earful if it was too cheap. These days I’m far more particular.
My wife or I could have written the exact same post about a trip nearly 40 years ago to a metro Chicago Zoo. We were very young, but my wife wisely insisted after that, no more fleabags.
My granddaughter borrowed a cooler from the basement for a work picnic. She returned it with half a handle. It had busted under the weight of sodas she’d been carrying. I bought it 30 years ago when her dad was active in sports and scouting. I’ve yet to throw it out, since the “cooler” part is still functional, so conceptually it’s still useable for a road trip but not a picnic where it’d need to be carried, full. It’s sitting by the front door, not returned to the basement. My “more rationally frugal” outcome would place it in a trash can. I don’t want my family to be stuck someday clearing a basement of decades of broken but still slightly useable stuff… My alternative “overly frugal” idea is to use it on my next trip to my tin casita in AZ that has no basement to collect such things. If that’s handy, it could give the cooler a second chance. I find it hard to throw things away, even items too worn out to donate to charity.
I suspect my frugal nature is well aligned with much of Humble Dollar’s readership. Here are a few areas where I may have taken frugality a bit too far: shoe gluing the soles of old Teva’s and Merrell’s, duct taping broken sunglasses, saving 30-year-old tattered jeans and t-shirts for painting, packing our used hotel soap bars so they don’t get tossed, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches whenever traveling, and too much commerce on EBay, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Duct tape, adhesives and paint are a cheapskate’s best friend.
Inspired by my practical grandfather I’d occasionally rip paper towels neatly in half after calculating I did not need to full surface area for the clean up job at hand.
He committed further with a pile of neatly folded and ripped paper towels in a bowl ready for use.
Getting a few big financial decisions right is of far more value than a mentality of frugality or yes, true cheapness on smaller stuff especially when it pertains to how we treat others and make them feel with gifts and acts of kindness.
Our family has traveled quite a bit over the years. This has always meant looking for deals, usually for lodging. I knew it went too far when we stayed in a motel just outside of Chicago in a sketchy area, and were afraid to even get under the covers of the bed! All I could think was this was a rent by the hour place and who knows what was left behind, ugggh. To be fair it was a late night find and we were just exhausted and needed a quick layover. From then on though my kids were always interested in the places I booked, and quick to give me an earful if it was too cheap. These days I’m far more particular.
My wife or I could have written the exact same post about a trip nearly 40 years ago to a metro Chicago Zoo. We were very young, but my wife wisely insisted after that, no more fleabags.
My granddaughter borrowed a cooler from the basement for a work picnic. She returned it with half a handle. It had busted under the weight of sodas she’d been carrying. I bought it 30 years ago when her dad was active in sports and scouting. I’ve yet to throw it out, since the “cooler” part is still functional, so conceptually it’s still useable for a road trip but not a picnic where it’d need to be carried, full. It’s sitting by the front door, not returned to the basement. My “more rationally frugal” outcome would place it in a trash can. I don’t want my family to be stuck someday clearing a basement of decades of broken but still slightly useable stuff… My alternative “overly frugal” idea is to use it on my next trip to my tin casita in AZ that has no basement to collect such things. If that’s handy, it could give the cooler a second chance. I find it hard to throw things away, even items too worn out to donate to charity.
I suspect my frugal nature is well aligned with much of Humble Dollar’s readership. Here are a few areas where I may have taken frugality a bit too far: shoe gluing the soles of old Teva’s and Merrell’s, duct taping broken sunglasses, saving 30-year-old tattered jeans and t-shirts for painting, packing our used hotel soap bars so they don’t get tossed, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches whenever traveling, and too much commerce on EBay, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Duct tape, adhesives and paint are a cheapskate’s best friend.