confession time....

[happy acres]

I am a.......cheapskate.
yes, it's true. I don't buy new things unless they are on sale and I have a coupon for it. My clothes come from yard sales and thrift stores. Food is home cooked, and I'm always on the lookout for free stuff. I thought perhaps this would be a good place for other cheapskates to confess. And maybe I can pick up a few tips!

 

[dewdropsinwv]

There is no crime in being frugal! I use coupons as much as possible, I also buy clothes at the good will. Home grown and cooked food is better for you anyway. I LOVE having a garden, saves a ton of money at the grocery store. If I could I would raise a beef cow and a pig a long with my meat chickens. NOW we are talking! If I could I would go off the power grid all together!

 

[Ridgerunner]

My wife and I volunteer at a charity thrift store. We go in on Sunday afternoons and sort, price, and shelve the books. This gives us first pick of the stuff in there. I wait until the stuff is priced and am very careful to pay the true price, but how can you argue against a $0.75 shirt that is nice enough to be worn to a reasonable restaurant or to go see a movie. All my work pants and shirts come from there. I'm on the lookout for a winter coat to work in. I'm a big believer in thrift stores.

I get plastic buckets for free at the bakery portion of a local grocery, everything form 2 gallon to 4 gallon, including lids. I can think of 10 buckets I have that I use pretty regularly, anything from gathering garden stuff, hulling dried beans, silking corn, breaking green beans, watering animals, storing bird seed, and such. I'm so cheap when the handles break I repair the handles on free buckets instead of going to get new ones. Somebody top that for being cheap!

 

[so lucky]

My father-in-law, now deceased, used to do some tailoring, so he was always finding thrifty things to do with fabric. He made quilts out of discarded mens' suits, scrounged in dumpsters and repaired broken shovels and rakes and lawn chairs, made stray animal traps out of grocery carts, replaced the rib-knitted cuffs and collars on jackets, replaced zippers, you name it. I never saw him in a new shirt. Some of them, I know, were 30 to 40 years old. He wasn't poor, just raised in the depression era.

 

[baymule]

I have gathered up over the years, materials to build a barn. I have treated telephone poles, used tin, used lumber, new lumber (reject rack at Lowes) and USB plywood I scrounged out of a roll off box.

When I realized that we would not stay here, I shelved building the barn idea and just cling to my "scrap pile" LOL. Now we are moving and I'll haul all my treasures up there and build my bars. Oh, my Grandpa taught me when I was a kid doggin' his footsteps that you drop a tin roof nail (used to be lead headed) in the hole of used tin and put a glop of tar pitch over it so it doesn't leak.

 

[baymule]

My Daddy used to pick up wood pallets. It was my job after school to take them apart, stack the boards and straighten the nails.

 

[Smart Red]

My spouse did carpenter work for "Harry the Greek" way back in the way back. He once roofed a house using 20 different types of left over shingles -- different colors, different sizes, different shapes. During the evening Harry would pick up all the bent nails, straighten them, and put them back in the nail box. Gr-r-r!

 

[journey11]

I struggle sometimes with my compulsion to be frugal and thrifty--and my lack of time. I often look at items for sale and consider the price too high being that I could definitely make it myself. I love to sew and build things, but I really don't have a lot of spare time for much of that since my kids are so little and need me right now. That, and I end up with a lot of things I squirrel away (fabric, craft supplies, scrap wood, buckets, etc.) and I do get tired of the clutter after a while.

It is important to me not to be so materialistic and I do get an intense satisfaction out of making things myself or scoring a good deal. It's just that sometimes I nearly drive myself crazy insisting on doing things the hard way...

But I suppose we all here are frugal to some degree. You just can't get a better return on the dollar than what you get from a packet of seed. Sure, I can always just buy it at the grocery store, but I'd rather grow it myself for several reasons!

 

[happy acres]

I know what you mean! I see things all the time and think "I could make that myself .....for a lot less! " and sometimes when I go shopping, I look at the price of something, figure in my coupon, and think no I can get a better deal. Sometimes I do, other times I do without.

 

[thistlebloom]

When I was 12 or 13 my dad bought an old shed or house, ...some kind of old structure anyway, and took it all apart and we hauled it home.
It was my sisters and my job to pull the nails out of the wood planks and pound them out straight so dad could reuse them. Thinking back on it, I remember enjoying the chore. Odd.

But anyway, dad built a feed shed/tack room. a tool shed, a horse shelter and a few small shelters on skids for the sheep and goats out of it all. He painted them all barn red and I could almost imagine they were real barns. I have sort of a barn fixation.

Dh and I as semi newlyweds, scrounged old pallets and took them apart to burn in our woodstove. I saved the nails in dads tradition.

My boys clothes were almost all yard sale and thrift store finds until they got to the age and size when used boys clothes were so holey and wore out that it wasn't smart to buy them used, and I bit the bullet and bought them new jeans.

The coop we have now was mostly old cedar and redwood from a dismantled deck that I got from a client when we cleaned up their cabin property.

I traded work for a used leather couch that I gave kid#1 for his apartment, and traded work a few years ago for an elliptical. That one was regrettable, because even though it was a spendy item when my client bought it, I traded way too much labor for it.
I did end up being able to sell it last year to pay for most of my new truck tires.

Gee, I didn't mean to turn this into a novel...