I bought one for my first Saturn, which was a 1993. I did it when an asshole ran a red light and T-boned it when my wife was driving it. Its awesome body cage let her get away with just some aches and physical therapy - no hospital stay at all.
I obviously replaced it with another Saturn. Which I drove until the repairs cost more than the car was worth, 15 years later. Only 150K miles, not a long commute.
I love Saturns.
However I’d tend to buy new these days, since new cars have more safety features than old used ones. And drive them until they fall apart, of course. And pay cash.
We plan our meals for the week based on what is on sale, and make sure we have all the ingredients we need to cook them, and that they produce enough leftovers for lunches. Saves grocery trips and we almost never eat fast food. Plus it saves on groceries.
I’m addicted to jigsaw puzzles, but have found thrift stores with excellent collections of them for 99 cents or $2 instead of $15 or more. And when I finish them I donate them back for a tax write-off.
Best of all, our daughter works for an airline. We saved a bundle on our last cruise, we can fly on hers for free, and we get big discounts (standby) on most others. When my wife was visiting her father every six weeks or so she could fly coast to coast for under $100 one way.
TP is one thing I will never scrimp on. Costco bulk packs, and I don’t get the sandpapery ones. I’ll never understand people who use only 3 squares or whatever at a time. I hear tale of something called “skidmarks” but it’s not something I’ve ever encountered as I have basic hygiene.
If there’s something on Amazon that I want, but I can wait, I use camelcamelcamel.com to create an alert when the price dips below a certain number. Zenni Optical for sure.
I use HSA for medical expenses and FSA for daycare. The savings aren’t immediate, and the latter requires a bit of planning in some cases, but it won’t just lower my taxes but make me eligible for additional tax credits etc.
The potential repairs to my car cost more than it’s worth, so I’m looking for a “new” one. I would typically buy one that’s 2-4 years old, though lately it looks like new car incentives even things a bit. There are certain cars (Toyota Tacoma, 4Runner, Chevrolet Colorado, Silverado) where it’s not really worth it to buy recent used as they keep their value well.
Link to what you’re talking about? I’m pretty sure California has the same minimum requirements (liability, but don’t need collision, comprehensive, etc), but you might be talking about something else.
It is wonderful if you’re an expert on cars and have the room and the tools to fix most things. Many people aren’t in that situation. While new cars depreciate quickly, buying a one to two year old car can be an excellent value. It can be quite stressful to deal with an older car that has constant breakdowns, trips to the mechanic when you’re clueless about the technobabble s/he is talking about, trying to explain to work why you’re late once again, and all the other assorted hassles.
I can’t imagine trying to save money on personal hygiene. It’s fine to decide to use less expensive soap, shampoo, and toilet paper. But, skimping beyond that sounds ridiculous.
It’s fine to bring lunch at work. But, if the whole gang goes out to lunch on Friday afternoon, you’d better be part of that group. You don’t want to be labelled as Not a Team Player.
Too many of the popular money saving ideas really aren’t based in the real world. Sure, if you find you’re spending $40 a week on coffee just to get you going in the morning, then you might want to consider waking up a bit earlier and making your own coffee. But, if you’re meeting up with a friend to catch up over a coffee on Saturday morning, then that’s probably not busting your budget.
No one is going to be on their deathbed and reflect that they wish they’d spent more time eating Ramen noodles at age 30 while making $45,000. No one wants to be elderly and have problems walking and reminisce about spending their vacation time sitting around in their underwear and reading sci fi rather than taking that trip to Europe which ‘cost too much.’
I imagine that what I’d save on paper (napkins, toilet paper, note pads, etc) I’d end up spending on my water bill. Cloth napkins don’t wash themselves. I do enough laundry as it is!
And I don’t want to imagine how filthy his tub is. All that fecal matter splashing everywhere…ew.
Now, I’m all for reusing stuff (plastic grocery bags are great for trash and small sandwich bags I use for scooping the litterbox), but there’s such a thing as being just plain cheap.
(And “dude” is not an insult)
At the bank, select an appropriate monthly fee package, then constantly keep the required balance in your account to avoid paying the monthly fees. It may seem silly to keep 2 grand in an account doing nothing, but when it’s saving you 10 bucks a month, the annual ROI is actually not bad. (Or just use a bank that doesn’t charge any fees, such as Tangerine in Canada.)
Always pay off all your credit cards to avoid paying interest. Set reminders in your favourite calendar to pay the credit card balance on time, every month. Just in case you forget, also program your bank account to pay at least the minimum on each credit card, every month.
I’m a consultant and dress/appearance is important; I have to dress business casual so I have a pretty full closet. I never buy anything that’s not on clearance. I have a full length cashmere overcoat I got from Men’s warehouse for $70 as opposed to $950 they wanted retail. I’ve literally saved thousands.
A bidet or your tub method would not save me money. The cost of running the pump for the well more would definitely outweigh the cost of two people’s worth of toilet paper.
I am rigorous about checking the Cashback sites for money back or coupons on purchases. I also buy everything with a Cashback credit card which I pay off monthly. When I know I want to purchase something, I set an acceptable price for the item and then wait until I find the item at or very close to that price. I buy in bulk when it results in a saving, splitting the purchase with my son and DIL.
I typically go years between a health condition in which nose-blowing is frequent. In between, for occasional use, my mother taught me to carry a handkerchief in my back pocked. You can find them in museums. Pronounced hanker-chiff.
If you clean the poo off yourself while in the shower, you’d be “cleaning off the poo in your shower”, wouldn’t you? In that case, clean off the accumulated poo in your frugally weekly shower.
Nope, you wouldn’t. Fecal matter would would accumulate all over the bottom of your tub. You should be scrubbing your tub regularly. (Whether you rinse poop off your butt in there or not)
And lucky you not getting sick frequently. You obviously don’t have allergies.
Yes, I remember them from my childhood. After a couple of blows they became this nasty abrasive foetid dank soggy ball of snot and misery that dwelt and festered in your pocket all day. Tissues better.
Regarding buying older cars: This might work if you know a lot about fixing cars, but can get pretty expensive if you have to take your car to the mechanic a lot. I used to save money by buying shit-boxes 10+ years old for $2k or less, then driving them around until they got a problem not worth fixing, then junking them. I had a friend that could do small jobs on cars, so I could keep them going for awhile. However, as a result I always had an unreliable car, and more often than not I was driving around with a bad inspection sticker.
Then I decided to upgrade a little. I had planned on spending about $5k on a seven or eight year old car. It wasn’t enough! Any decent car was $6k-8k and up (even private party). And I wasn’t looking at anything fancy, Accords and Maximas and the like. Why would I spend that much money on a car that I’m going to have to start shelling out money for repairs soon? I decided to go new, using the $5k as a down payment on a Mazda 3. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made: reliable, worry-free, no money sunk on repairs (after 3 and a half years, I have a small one coming up). I’m not sure how long I will keep this one, but I’ll probably stick to buying new for now on.
It might make sense to buy used if you’re talking about an expensive $60k+ pick-up truck or SUV, where the repair costs don’t scale the same with a more economical $25k car. But then my money saving tip is don’t buy a big hulking vehicle you don’t need! Stick to an economical mid-size sedan (or smaller).
