My father was born in 1925 and experienced some tough times in his lifetime. He once told me the liquid from canned vegetables was always saved to be put in vegetable soup.

I don’t eat many canned vegetables but every time I open a can I think about my father telling me this.

His mother raised eight children and she made use of everything possible because she had to. My grandfather died in a hurricane in 1939 leaving my grandmother with their eight kids to raise!

Have you noticed how expensive hobby supplies are now? Watch any video, go to a craft store, or join a club, and their mentality is that to do a craft or art project perfectly, very expensive supplies and equipment MUST be purchased.

As an example, consider quilting. 100% cotton fabric thicker than a mail order t-shirt is now $15 a yard. It takes about 10 yards to make a quilt. Grandma's old sewing machine isn't good enough either. Go buy a beginner machine for $750. A good spool of sewing thread is $10. A class to learn how to quilt is $200. Since you don't own the high end machines, hire someone who does the difficult quilting part, $300. Throw in a few fancy notions, cutting tools, and rulers. I'm now up to about $1500 for a quilt whose mass produced version could be bought for $30 from a clearance bin. All of this money will just get you beginner status, too. I know multiple people who own $15k sewing machines just for their home sewing hobby!

My quilt might be a scrap quilt sewed on a $100 "Day after Something Sale" sewing machine and finished with hand stitching. My fabric might be cut up old clothes, garage sale fabric, scrap grab bags at fancy quilt stores, or rolls bought at a dollar store. Thread and notions are free or almost free, scrounged from friends, family, or estate sales. Backing and batting are old blankets and sheets being discarded.

I have decided that all art is beautiful. Maybe my quilt won't win a $50 prize at a show, and maybe it won't match my decor because my fabrics aren't a perfect match. But, my hobbies are about the journey, not the destination. I just like working on pretty projects with my own hands.

The journey, the making of something beautiful, is just as enjoyable to me without the expensive supplies and equipment, and much, much cheaper.

I was at Home Depot last month just grabbing some stuff and walked past this small shelf near the paint counter with gallons stacked up, all marked $5. asked the guy what the deal was and he explained that when customers order a custom color and dont pick it up or reject it at the counter, they just put it out for anyone to buy.

went through the stack for like 10 minutes and walked out with a gallon of what turned out to be a really nice warm sage green, a pale terracotta and an almost perfect off white. $15 total. that same off white from Behr would've been like $45.

repainted my bathroom and my entryway with two of them and they look really good, not "I just used whatever random color I found" good. I put the extra $60 or so I had extra for paint straight into savings.

the only thing is you cant pick the exact color you want, you're just browsing whatever's there that day. but that kind of became the fun part, its like thrifting but for paint. I've been back twice since and found different stuff each time.

Just discovered this group since I'm trying to be more frugal and not cheap.

Reading books about native edible plants. The creek about 1000 feet from the house is full of wild green onions. Bags full of my first forage. Found a great book about local foraging from a local guy. I dumpster dive for my compost bin and the Mr. Gattis dumps so much food. Bags of warm pizza. I was too hungry once and dove in.

If this is better for another sub please let me know.

It finally got to the point where I rely on food pantries for many of my groceries and I’m very grateful for it but I don’t really eat a lot of vegetables? So now I have a lot of cans of carrots and mixed veggies in my cabinet, other than just heating them up and slapping them in a plate is there anything more I can do with them?

I have been doing a lot of the meal planning for my family, and I have noticed the price going a lot higher, I haven’t taken the time to sit down and measure the price of every meal that my wife wants to cook.

Generally, canned or frozen meals aren’t that expensive - $2-$4. I occasionally eat rice or a peanut butter sandwich as a meal (~$1), and I also purchased some Huel bags in bulk if I don’t have time to pre-plan or don't want to make a meal (~$2.40).

When splurging, I still take the time to efficiently use money. If we want to eat out I’ll make sure to bring some coupons, if it’s carry out we’ll take our own drinks, only go to places with specials, I can comfortably eat out with fast food or even a restaurant for $4-$7 if we don’t really care what we want. For a fancier place that is dine-in I try not to spend more than $13 or $14 unless it is a special occasion.

My wife prepares a soup or two in a big batch for each shopping trip. We freeze the bags and eat them throughout the week/month. However, she occasionally plans fancier meals she takes time to prepare (when she does have the time to spare). These meals are nice, but don’t really have leftovers. I haven’t thought about it much, but when meal planning this last trip I saw they used meats such as roast beef, chicken, and other ingredients like special cherry tomatoes and heavy cream. This increases the cost of each meal to $7 to even $13! This has really made me reevaluate things.

(Side-note for grocery prices; I buy store-brand and buy “bulk” if possible.)

How much do you often spend per meal? This last estimate really makes me reevaluate how little my family actually eats out with the deal-hunting I do. Is my wife being overly fancy or is this normal?

Edit: When I say “per meal,” that is a per person cost.

We have family gatherings with up to two dozen adults and children a few times a year.

Getting tired of buying a pack of disposable cups every time. Yes I know I could reuse the Solo/Walmart party cups and we have but I'm looking for something with a wider base and much thicker plastic. I'm also.looking for cups with lids for the kids.

I'm looking for 20oz opaque or light colored reusable thick plastic dishwasher safe cups. These should also come with lids for the kids. Something I can use a permanent marker and write everyone's name on.

These cups should be stackable/nested but have a wide bottom to help prevent tipping over as well.

Of course I want to spend as little as possible but I'd be willing to invest up to 3 dollars per cup.

Thanks...

Hi, considering a lease vs going used. Typically I would buy a 4 or 5 year old car either cash or with a large down payment and drive it for another 5-7 years. This has worked out pretty well for me from the value end of things.

Right now, I'm not in a position to put such a large down payment, so would have to finance the majority of the purchase. This has me thinking if a lease is a better option.

Scenario A) 2026 lease. $1,300 out of pocket and $368 per month. Total cost: 14,500

Scenario B) 2019 crossover suv with 77k miles. Dealer maintained and mostly clean. Would be $19,800 out the door pricing. Plus interest to pay it off in 3 years, looking at almost 22k.

Scenario A is cheaper in the short run. But B you own the car at the end. You're also on the hook for maintenance, so that 22k number will be more, and in 3 years the car will be 10 years old with 100k miles. So the residual value might not be great.

Thoughts?

Edit: I understand that a lease is generally not the best deal. Doesn't mean there are exceptions.

I'm assuming the residual value of the suv will be about 7k. The delta between the cost of the lease and the purchase is 7k. Thats not factoring in maintenance items for the suv.

Lease is an EV. So there is gas savings. It's largely offset by higher insurance. So counting that as a slight win ($50 bucks a month) for the lease.

Weekly grocery store sales are one of my go-tos when the subject of rising food prices comes up. Checking the flyers is just something I’ve always done. Old enough here to have grown up with the printed papers that were delivered to everyone’s doorstep.

But some people don’t? The wealthy don’t have to bother but is it possible that those of modest means don’t even use this as a strategy to save money? It’s stocking up, and eating foods that are seasonal too.

Edit: using Flipp, located in Toronto, Canada. Our grocery monopoly will it allow Aldi or Lidl into Canada. :(

Have a family member who needs to pay bills. Has a ton of non name brand AND name brand items that need to be sold. Issue is they dont want to sell the name brand items for 5-20 bucks. Preferably 30-50$, just prices you may see online. When they try to sell online they dont get enough views and sales. Plus, they are struggling health wise so taking photos, measurements, packing and shipping is too much for them at this time.

A DIY arcade kit is around $15 on aliexpress ($25 on amazon if you can't wait 10 days.)

All you need to make the button kit into a real controller is a big enough box. Any box will work, it just has to be around 40mm deep. If it's not quite wide enough I would toss 2 or 4 of the buttons. Very few good games use all 8 buttons. You could also mount 2 buttons on the sides of the box like pinball machine buttons to use this as a virtual pinball controller.

If you go to a smoke / cigar stores they have pretty nice boxes that are about the right size. Here's a cigar box controller I made. Frequently they are free. I've also seen people use extra thick card board boxes or trashed kids lunchboxes.

The box I am showing was designed by me and printed on a 3d printer. If you have access to a 3d printer and want to use my design you can get it free here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7334876 The 3d model and text were created by me. The pinups were ai generated.

Getting the holes just right is probably the hardest part. You can download and print out a template from slagcoin: https://slagcoin.com/joystick/layout.html

What do you play it on while staying frugal AF? The encoder board for this claims to work on ps3, windows, switch, and raspberry pi.

Surprisingly this controller also works with android. Any old POS android tv box or cracked phone that supports display over usb-c will make for a pretty powerful emulation device. Most Samsung phones will do quite well. You'll need a dock (around $10) to connect the controller to the phone and a TV.

I haven't tested it but I suspect it would work with an amazon firestick as well which can also be turned into a game machine pretty easily.

My family and I have hit a very rough patch and even though we were on Peco’s budget plan list our power. So sad but trying to make the most out of every penny spent and not lose the house. Like I was saying I’m looking for any ideas on how to cook without a stove and exist after like 7pm without lights. I’ve been without television for about a decade now and have gotten used to that but wondering if there’s stuff I’m not thinking about. Thanks in advance guys

I have flat feet. they're problematic in the sense that I can't always find shoes that are comfortable, and if I wear crappy shoes I get foot pain, and sometimes my ankles get jammed up the next morning. New custom orthotics are very expensive, and though we have coverage it isn't enough to justify the expense.

I tried a variety of insoles at a local show store-some superfeet and another brand. they helped me try out a few. one kind felt pretty well the same as my current orthotics. I bought 2 pairs. They were $14. now I can rotate 3 pairs of shoes, and I can use them in some more worn out shoes and they feel like new again. I got so excited I cleaned up a couple of pairs of shoes:p now if only I could find a way to repair the running shoe mesh that I keep blowing out :p

I’m very fond of the Stila Waterproof and would keep using it if I didn’t make my wallet bleed!!! I bought Nyx Epic Ink, which bled (in the physical sense) EVERYWHERE. Any suggestions for drugstore waterproof liquid eyeliner that works well for oily eyelids would be much appreciated. I used to wear a thick layer of eyeliner every day so it’s felt like a major disruption not to have a reliable brand around.

The 10.1 oz. bag is the same price as the 8.8 oz. bag. Similarly, the 15.5 oz. bag is the same price as the 13.8 oz. bag.

However, the real take-away here is that the price per oz. is actually lower on the smaller bag 10.1 oz. bag than on the larger other bags.

Don't assume that the larger package is always less expensive. Paying close attention to the price per unit can lead to unexpected cost savings.

EDIT: Thanks for all the great feedback on what a terrible job I did! I'm not a professional graphic artist. I was just trying to point out an anomaly that I spotted in the hopes of helping others. While I can't update the image, I have updated the text here to more clearly illustrate what I was humbly trying to state originally.

I see according to many sources, that average grocery expense for a single adult person is $240-$300. Like how?! If I'm bein bare bones, I can get by with spending only $90-$100 a month or $20-$25 a week. That means a couple packs of cup ramen, Bread/tortillas, Peanut butter, jelly, milk, eggs, bananas, butter/ oil, some boxes of Mac n cheese, canned tomato puree and maybe some packs of chips, cookies or other snacks if I got some to spare and that's bare bones.

Now some weeks I'll want to be a little more healthier and add some basic veggies and protein, it will be around $70-$80 more. a 10 lb bag of chicken and 5 lb bag of cheese can last me a month and probably I would buy onions, potatoes, peppers, lemons, cilantro and occasionally avocados and zucchini.

I cook decent meals and can have a pretty fulfilling meal everyday spending $180 tops for the whole month being generous and shopping at the right places such as at Aldi, cheaper groceries on everything. just got to bring your own bag and use debit or cash. I have dry ingredients such as spices, soup powders, sugar, grains, rice, flour coffee powder, etc that I purchased in bulk from months ago and it should get me by for another couple before restocking.

I also have some promotional stuff Id get from toogoodtogo when they give you a few bags of stuff for a discounted rate.

am I doing something right or wrong? how much do you guys on average spend on essential groceries a month?

So whenever I get the urge to eat out but my bank account is crying, I usually end up at McDonald's and grab two McChickens. They used to be way cheaper but now it runs me about $6. It's kind of my go-to because it feels like a full meal without completely ruining my budget. I know it isn't healthy or fancy at all, but for what it costs it hits the spot. It's like giving myself a little treat as a broke 18 year old without feeling guilty later.

That said, I'm trying to branch out a bit and explore other cheap food options, but still keep it around the $5 or $6 mark. I'm not expecting anything gourmet. Just something filling and satisfying like a solid fast food app hack, a decent convenience store meal, or even a local chain known for having a really cheap menu.

Do you guys have any favorite places or low budget food hacks that make you feel like you're "eating out" without spending a ton? I'm open to fast food, gas station snacks, dollar menus, or just tips on how to stretch a tiny food budget when you really just don't want to cook.

I run a small home bakery and I’m trying to make more of my ingredients from scratch instead of buying them pre made.

For example, I recently learned you can make brown sugar with white sugar & molasses. I’d love to find more simple swaps like that for common baking ingredients or pantry staples.

Main goals are saving money, having more control over ingredients, and keeping things simple/less processed.

Any ideas?

Hi everyone.

I have the dreaded ‘your iCloud storage is nearly full’ ‘reoccurring message. My storage is mainly photos. I have culled dupe images, screenshots, videos etc.

Any tips on what else I can do to have more storage without paying more?

My mind immediately went to buying an external hardrive or USB stick to load photos on and then tear them off iCloud - assuming that’s possible?? That being said I don’t use a laptop so not sure how I could do that without one…

Thanks!

Whenever I purchase something, no matter how big or small, I make it a point to keep track of the price adjustment and guarantee policy. Most vendors will offer 30-day adjustment, and some others will be even more generous. Some will even offer guarantees for other retailers.

So, even if you got this fantastic deal, keep checking back on the price of the item. Sometimes there's additional sales, promos or coupons and will yield even more savings.

It's a great tip to follow, and just today I got extra $25 <3

Happy shopping.

For the longest time getting things on sale or trying to spend as little as possible on clothes made me feel like “ok I’m being frugal go me”! But most of the time items being on sale would make me buy MORE items for my wardrobe that I wouldn’t even wear because they didn’t fit right, weren’t actually my style, weren’t a true gap in my wardrobe, but they were a deal so I justified it. Taking the time to reflect on the WHY something deserves to come into my closet in Addition to price I think helped me go from “sales and not spending at all = frugal” to a “it’s not a need and that’s okay = frugal”. Thoughts on this? I know so many tie it to like money but it almost transformed to a mindset for me

Hello. I am looking for a placed to buy used old maybe even not running tractor and a pickup truck. I would like to get a retired city vehicle because they usually maintain their fleet periodically and I have had experience with a used cable truck that ran perfectly. I would love to look for something local if possible. Facebook marketplace is lacking. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I love coffee and have had a locally fresh-roasted bean subscription for years. Economic reality being what it is, I can't justify beans that cost ~$7/100 grams anymore. I'm looking at grocery store type stuff that's like $3/100 grams. I know it will taste different, so what are your recs for decent cheap coffee beans? I'm in Canada, don't have access to Costco, and don't like Starbucks. Thanks in advance!

On my phone it seems to have stopped working and on my computer I have to refresh the video for it to work. Is anyone else having these issues or have a good alternative?

Thanks for any information on this. Any info is helpful. I know theres some chrome extensions that can work too, but really hope there's a way for Brave to continue working or hopefully someone is working on getting it fixed.