Are you cheap in MOST all you do?

[SwamiSalami]

nice one, larry.

i don't even use paper towels, i'm so cheap. i make kitchen rags out of old t-shirts or gifted t-shirts i'd never wear (like a trashy harley davidson shirt someone gave me recently).

our 2 televisions are energy star.

when i make ramen noodles, i rinse the pan real quick and make tea to use the hot burner. another one is to use lids when boiling water, it's much, MUCH more efficient.

i'm full of 'em.

love this thread.

[Ford Man]

I'm a lot like many of the others. Try to buy things that will last, things I need and a few things I want. My wife is the type if something tears up or comes up missing, her response is I'll buy another one. Not me, if it's lost I want it found, if it's broke I want to fix it. I think I'm finally getting this mentality drilled into my son. For the past few years he's been spending everything he made on what I consider junk, but in the past few months he's started using his money more wisely and started trying to learn how to make repairs to things that are broke instead of going and buying a new one.

Some people call me "cheap", but I like to consider myself conservative. I have nicer better looking cars, but I still use my '88 Escort with 518,7-- miles on it for a daily driver and keep the better cars for longer trips instead of having to buy a new car every few years just so I'll have something nice and dependable when I travel on longer trips from home.

Most nights there's one light on in the house, it's a 1 watt LED that we use in the living room while on the computer or watching TV. It doesn't give a lot of light, but since our living room and kitchen are basically one room with only one wall about 8 foot long between them and the rooms are about 20 foot long it gives plenty of light for the living room and enough light if we need to go into the kitchen for a snack or drink. We don't have a flat screen TV either.

I also spend quite a bit on tools for auto/home repairs and usually buy good quality tools unless it's something I'll only use 1/2 dozen times during my lifetime. I've probably got $3-5K tied up in tools, but they've saved me many thousand dollars in building/repair costs. Just in auto repairs/maintenance in the last 1-2 years they've probably saved me $5K.

Most things that get built such as storage buildings or garages I do myself rather than pay someone else to do it for me with the exception of the garage I just had built last spring. I did have someone else build it, because we had just moved into our new home in fall of 2010 and I needed it built as soon as possible, because I needed a place to work on my cars and store lawn equipment and knew if I built it myself being disabled with a bad back it might take me several months to get it completed. Although I had someone else build the garage, I did the insulation and radiant barrier myself.

When we moved into the new house it didn't have any ceiling fans, I bought ceiling fans for 4 of the rooms and installed them myself instead of paying an electrician to do it for me. The house needed a new roof when we bought it so I bought radiant barrier and put it underneath the new metal roof to help with energy cost. The radiant barrier cost me about $350. and I'm guessing the payback in heat and a/c use reduction will be less than 1 1/2 years. So far this year we've already seen temperatures in the low 90's and with the radiant barrier on the roof the house stays comfortable until late in the afternoon then starts to get kind of warm, but when the sun goes down and at night we put a fan in the window to pull the hot air out of the house and bring cool air in at the rest of the windows and by the middle of the night most nights the house is cooler than if we were using a/c. We heat using a Monitor vented kerosene heater and with the radiant barrier installed we used less kerosene last winter in a 1400 sf home (heated about 1200 sf had an extra bedroom closed off) than we did at our 1000 sf home in NC even though the KY temperatures are colder than NC. We used about 85 gallons compared to an average of about 125 gallons in NC. Just the difference in gallons not even taking into consideration the extra sf the radiant barrier saved about $160 the first winter. The electric bill during the summer with a/c use is running about $35. a month less than it was in the smaller home in NC and the house is cooler. I also wrapped the water heater with radiant barrier to reflect the heat loss back to the tank.

My son just bought a home next door to ours in Jan. 2011 so now I'm helping him with making repairs to it that needed to be done so he doesn't have to hire a carpenter, plumber, and electrician.

In my best car I change the oil every 3K miles and about every 5K in the others, but I pour the oil that I drain from those back into the bottles and use it for topping off oil in the '88 Escort which now uses/leaks a quart about every 800-1K miles.

When we lived in NC my wife worked in a hospital linen department, they sent their linen out to a commercial laundry to have it washed/dried/folded and often got towels back that came other facilities and the hospital wouldn't use them, because they didn't match their towels so my wife would bring them home to use as dish drying towels/hand towels and when they get worn or to dirty/dingy to use in the house I take them for rags to use when working on the cars or lawn equipment. The hospital she works at now is doing some remodeling and replacing some of the patient room cabinets. A few weeks ago the contractor that's doing the remodeling brought me one of the old cabinets and said if he got more he'd bring them to me to put in my garage for storage. The cabinets are about 8' tall and 2' wide and 1' deep so they'll hold lots of stuff. All I have to do is cut plywood to put shelves in them. There was nothing wrong with the cabinet except cosmetic damage.

I currently have between 20-25 cases of motor oil stored in the garage I bought before the price of oil got so high. Some of it I bought on sale for 2qts/$1. and didn't pay more than $1./qt. for any of it. I probably have more oil in stock than I'll use in the rest of my lifetime.

When meats are on sale we buy very large quantities break it down into portions for a meal and freeze it that way we have enough to last until they run it on sale again. We still have some T bone steak in the freezer we bought and vacuum sealed a couple years ago during a sale. When canned goods are on sale we do the same thing buy in quantity put it in the cabinet and use on it until the next sale.

When my wife needs hot water for washing dishes she runs a pot of water through the coffee maker then adds cold water to it to bring the temperature down instead letting the water run waiting for the hot water to get to the faucet from the water heater.

If I hadn't used this type of thinking when I was younger I don't know what we would have done during the 5 years I had to fight for my disability after my back injury and couldn't work. When we moved from NC to KY in Oct. 2010 and bought our home in KY I was able to buy it with cash even though we hadn't sold our home in NC and haven't sold it yet. I'm trying to wait until the housing market improves before selling it hoping to get a better price out of it. All it's costing us in property taxes and insurance.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by JacobAziza

All of you should check out Mr Money Mustache

Oh, and congratulations to you for being prominently linked in the recent Mustachian bloggy posting about biking (and its impact on a financially responsible lifestyle): What Do You Mean “You Don’t Have a Bike”?! | Mr. Money Mustache

[JacobAziza]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Oh, and congratulations to you for being prominently linked in the recent Mustachian bloggy posting about biking (and its impact on a financially responsible lifestyle): What Do You Mean “You Don’t Have a Bike”?! | Mr. Money Mustache

Thanks.
I've been following (and commenting on) his blog since it was barely a month old, and readerships was still in the dozens, instead of the thousands.
I actually wrote the article on used bikes that he linked to specifically at the request of another reader in the comment section - hence its focus specifically on getting a good value on a used bike meant specifically for commuting.

Back then, when almost no one had heard of him, he actually seemed a bit impressed with my very internet notoriety, from my instructables posts and the video of my house, but now I am shamelessly riding his coattails

[NeilBlanchard]

"Disposable plastic" should be an oxymoron.

If the OP is equating "cheap" with "not wasteful" then I am trying to be cheap. But reducing waste is not always the same as cheap -- witness the amount of cheap stuff that is shipped around the world, only to be used once or twice and then thrown "away". Cheap stuff breaks *by design*; hence the term "designed for the dump".

Where is "away"?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

"Disposable plastic" should be an oxymoron.

What's cheap, though? I suppose paper/plastic plates and dinnerware are "cheap" - say a penny or two for a full place setting. Except that sometime back in the early '80s I bought a set of Corelle dinnerware - the sort of thing that goes for $40-50 at WalMart these days - and I'm still using it. So figure a penny a day times 365 days per year times 30 years... and that's not counting all the times I've had friends over, and used more than one setting.

[ecomodded]

I grew tired of paying stupid high cable bills for programming that displeased me, so i cut it off,7 years ago.
I now watch what i want when i want it threw hosting websites. So far my savings have been shockingly large.
84 moths x $35 a month= $2940
for the larger cable package $65 a month x 84 months=$5460
I guess i am frugal, not cheap, I am a consumer, I own about one of everything and love to get new gadgets..
I have a Large house and a basement full of tools..
like others i do all the renovations all the handyman work and all the mechanical repairs myself. My lack of excess money makes me a jack of all trades.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

"Disposable plastic" should be an oxymoron.

...sorta like "Artificial Rhinestones"?

[Cd]

I don't like to think of myself as "cheap", but i guess that is indeed what i am by most peoples definition.

I have a very low wage job, so i found an apartment within walking distance from work.
Work, food, and anything else is all within walking or bike riding distance.

When i moved in, i planned ahead for things such as where the sun would be in winter and summer. I live in Texas where we do not have winters, but summers are cooking hot.
By making sure that i faced away from afternoon sun, i save quite a bit of energy usage.

On my porch, i put out pull down shades which allows enough light for the plants, but filters out the heat.

I also chose to live on the third floor which insulates me from the heat above, yet allows me to mooch off the neighbor below me ( heat rises eh ! ) when its cold.
I also made sure the windows were double pane and had a good seal.

When i come home from work my apartment is comfortable - perhaps 78* or so. Once the sun begins to set, the A/C goes into shade and i turn it on for three to five minutes ( or even less ) which cools the apartment to a comfortable 72* .

Of course i use CFL bulbs ( LED bulbs are very costly yet only save a fraction more ( a 40W equivalent LED vs. CFL bulb is only 1 watt difference, yet the LED costs around ten times more.
I open my blinds and find that i only really need to turn on lights in rooms such as my bathroom. Even when closed, the blinds, which are light filtering let in plenty of light.
( I do not live in a dark cave like some might think.)

In the evenings when it is not too humid yet cool, i leave the windows open in one of the rooms. This cools down the apartment several degrees in summer, and i close them before going to work.

I bought a Apple laptop versus a desktop due to the energy rating. ( Overpriced pretty thing this Apple is ! )
If i want to watch a movie i watch it on my laptop. Most times i must admit i am on this site using my cell phone. It uses something like 4watts of power !
If i want to watch a video i use the laptop, yet i actually have no problem watching Netflix on my Cellphone.

My refrigerator has been modified to use only the freezer portion as the refrigerator . If i want ice cream, i have to eat it within a day, but i think the energy saving make up for that. i have had it modified this way for over two years.
( Being a single guy i can do something like this ! :-) )

My biggest energy use is undoubtably my electric stove. Since i have been cooking more, my energy consumption has gone up three fold.

My highest usage to date is when my girlfriend was staying here ( no surprise ) In one week, she ran up my usage four times the previous month ! - over 100 kWh

Hair dryers will do that !

My all time low has been just under 21 kWh without breaking a sweat ( literally )

Now get this : I'm looking at an old bill

Energy usage : 25KWh
" Customer Charge " = $ 6.00
Energy Charge = $ 0.89
Green Choice Charge = $ 1.38
"Trasmission Service Cost Adj " = 0.02
Sales Tax = $ 0.08
Anti Litter Residential = $ 5.00
Solid Waste = $ 5.00
Comprehensive Drainage Fee = $ 7.75
Street Service = $ 7.75

So I used 89 cents worth of electricity, yet have to pay all these other fees .

I wonder if i would have to pay the " Anti litter fee " and such if i just lived using a few solar panels out on the porch and canceled my electric !

I had the apartments leave my water heater closet unlocked and i turned it down to its lowest setting. I have enough hot water for my showers, and since its just me, that just fine.
My gas usage is much like my electricity usage - near none, yet i have to pay the mandatory blah blah blah fee which raises the bill up to $ 15 or so a month.


BTW My apartment is a good sized apartment - larger than some small two bedroom apartments.

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by Cd

I had the apartments leave my water heater closet unlocked and i turned it down to its lowest setting. I have enough hot water for my showers, and since its just me, that just fine.

Can you put a timer on the heater? Since you can predict when you'll need, and not need, hot water, then have it turn on a few minutes before then, then stay off for the rest of the night/day.
Or you could superinsulate it, so that with the lowered temperature it would turn on only 1-2 times a day.

One of the "cheap" things I learned from my Grandma is how to use the small remains of a bar of soap: squeeze it into the next bar. You might need to wet both to make it stick, but extends the soap's life by 2-4 days