I’ve noticed sometimes that there’s some half-baked videos or blogs or whatever that purport this or that frugal trick, but if you look at the time or math, it’s not actually frugal for you.
What are some examples of that you’ve come across? The things that “aren’t worth it”?
For me it’s couponing. (Although I haven’t heard people talk about it recently–has it fallen out of “style”, or have businesses caught up to the loopholes folks used to exploit?)
It’s more of a generalized rule but:
Assume that your own time has value.
A lot of “frugal” tips operate off the assumption that you can spend your own time and it doesn’t cost anything. But your time is valuable. Time spent trying to save a few bucks should be considered working time; ask yourself how much you would get paid by your job for the same amount of time. Maybe you enjoy doing whatever the thing is, so it can be considered recreation, but if it’s some difficult or mind numbing slog, then that doesn’t necessarily mean that you actually saved yourself anything, because you weren’t getting paid to do work, and you could have been doing something more rewarding instead.
I feel this way about cooking. I hate cooking. It takes a lot of time. And lots of cleanup time. And time spent planning and shopping. Plus the tools, ingredients, and power/gas/water used all cost money. With all that in mind, a $9 bowl of chipotle is significantly cheaper by my estimation than cooking an equivalent myself.
I’m with you on cooking something like one meal. If I’m going to get out a bunch of stuff in the kitchen and put in that much effort, then I had better be eating for at least a few days off of what I make. Casseroles, stews, big pots of pasta, and holy hell was I excited when I learned how much curry I could make in one big crock pot and then put that on rice for like two weeks’ worth of meals.
I just cook stuff that basically cooks itself. Crockpots, pasta, certain veggies and meats on the oven. After doing them many times I already know the timings for everything so I just put alarms to remind me of turning the fire off/flipping them in the oven once and that’s it. Doing something else in between. Technically speaking you spend only a couple minutes actively cooking for each meal that way. Just don’t forget to set the alarms or it’s burnt (and move the particular meat from the freezer to the fridge the night before)
Then you need to learn how to cook properly, or get more experience. By the time you have driven to and from chipotle, and factor in that time, the cost of gas, the wear and tear on your car. Cooking is significantly cheaper. We only cook from scratch at home, and it rarely takes more than 15 mins to whip up a good meal that tastes better than most things you can buy, even sit down restaurants. When I cook, I clean as I go normally, so clean up aftewards is fast. If you clean up immediately after, clean up is fast. Time spent eating doesn’t count. 20 minutes, McDonalds drive thru takes 20 mins.
Honestly, to me, that would be incredibly fast prep or your meals are pretty simple. Even easy meals I’ve made a million times take me half an hour. Most take one hour to cook and I still feel like I’m rushing around.
I live somewhere where I have access to dozens of restaurants within a 5 minute drive and I can order ahead to avoid waiting. Cooking really is not an activity I enjoy so I have no interest in practicing unless I have to. That is not to say I never have food at home. I regularly make healthy super smoothies, sandwiches loaded with greens, prepared salads, and whole grain cereals. I wouldn’t consider that cooking though.
I’m not looking to invalidate the experience of anyone who is good at or enjoys cooking. Just sharing my opinion that this is one area that is very commonly recommended for saving money that I personally don’t find worth my time.
Not to mention the difference in nutritional quality if home-made food is the staple of one’s diet versus take-out. When you make your own food you can adjust the recipe to your own taste so that it tastes good without over-reliance on salt, saturated fats, and other hyper-processed ingredients (which is what’s used to make take-out food taste appealing)
I hate how judgemental people are about food.
The scary thing is, food is directly connected to a person’s ability to live. So when you get in there psychologically and root around, spreading shame and judgement, it might actually stick with someone. It might actually be just ONE more little straw on the camel’s back to break it. Because food is so directly and intimately connected to a person’s physical ability to be healthy, it might very well cascade into something bigger than you ever anticipated.
Especially with all of society yelling their own version of it. And family.
I really, really wish people would shut the hell up about other people’s food habits. It doesn’t really cost YOU anything, but it might actually make life easier on THEM.
I would not habe worked in that time. I would have sat on the sofa and watched something on Netflix that I do not care about.
Businesses have caught up and fixed the exploits.
For me, it’s dried beans. Beans are an excellent source of protein and fiber, and it doesn’t get much cheaper per serving than bulk dried beans.
But rinsing, soaking over night, and then boiling, only to end up with way more beans than we will consume, and canned beans are almost as good and almost as cheap.
We use a pressure cooker for our dried beans. 20-40 minutes depending on the bean. You don’t have to soak them overnight when using a pressure cooker. I ensure that each batch we make is consumed within five days.
Canned beans are considerably more expensive based on the amount we eat.
If you only eat a can here and there, it’s probably not worth making them from dry.
I’ve found pressure cookers are the only way I can get beans tender. (I’m not a great cook.)
Do you have hard water? That can make beans not get soft if you’re boiling them.
Get the beans and water to a boil, then turn down the heat until it’s just simmering.
Simmer for 1 hour, then taste test. Most dried beans will be tender, but some dried beans that have been sitting on the shelf for a long time might take up to 1 more hour of simmering, for a total of 2 hours.
I’ve never had dried beans take more than 2 hours of simmering to tenderize.
Dried lentils take much less time, usually about 45 minutes.
Pour off all the water and rinse the beans until the water runs clean. The bean simmering water contains much of the indigestible sugars that make you fart after you eat beans.
Now the beans are ready to make soups and chili or however you want to use them.
But yeah, 20-40 minutes in a pressure cooker is a lot faster.
Dried beans are a huge win for me (with a pressure cooker) because they’re cheaper and tastier… but the biggest thing is that they’re really easy to get in bulk and store. Canned beans are HEAVY and if you walk / bike / take transit to get groceries that can be a big deal too.
Probably not frugal, but instant pot changed my life, in regards to soaking beans. What a time/effort saver.
Can you share your technique? I have a giant bag of black beans and I always reach for a can instead because it’s such a hassle.
Pour em in the pot, fill with water about an inch over the top of the beans. 40 mins, and pull em, or 30 mins with 15 min natural release (recommended, but I almost never do it).
Searching for the cheapest gas station. Too much time and gas.
In Australia there are apps that show cheapest prices near you, so at least there’s not too much time and effort involved.
Ah good. Sorry. I’m traumatized by parents driving obsessively around for hours looking for best prices on things…obviously there are better ways now.
There was a trick with the Caltex app where you can do a price lock and then get the fuel from any other Caltex station
What people would do is find the cheapest fuel in the country, use a fake GPS app to make the app think you are close by and lock in the price, then go to their local servo and use the locked in price. Saving 15/20c per litre.
Yep my wife will drive 8 miles to Costco…if you’re going anyway it might be fine. But 16 miles at 22 mpg with $4 gas means it costs $2.80 drive there and back. Saving 8 cents a gallon would be $1.28 in a 16 gallon tank.
I buy gas at the station 1/4 mile from our house…I don’t look at the price. It’s always reasonable.
Cheap gas ain’t good gas anyway. You end up paying for it later in lost fuel efficiency.
You can buy Top Tier now, or you can buy a bottle of polyetheramine later.
Edit to add: this is about the type and quantity of detergent pack, not about the octane/grade. Brands are required to have 2x the EPA mandated minimum detergent in all grades and at all locations to carry the Top Tier logo.
Costco carries it. So the generalization of cheap = bad does not always hold. But it very often will.
Lower octane gas definitely gives you less power. The owner’s manual for my car gives two different horsepower ratings for different octane gasoline.
In the US, there aren’t that many refineries. No matter what gas station you go to, your gas is most likely coming from the same closest refinery. The only exceptions here are a few of the name brands, and even then it may not be true, they have their detergent blended too it.
Cloth nappies/diapers. Cleaning them is a black hole for personal time.
The manufacture of 2.5 years of disposable diapers has a lower carbon footprint than the energy usage to launder cloth diapers over the same time period.
What about the difference in waste as well? Talk about cherry-picking outcomes to make your product/position look good. It’s like soft drinks advertising that they’re fat-free or chips/crisps saying they’re sugar-free
I personally don’t mind much using cloth diapers.
We quickly rince them after use so it does not smell unlike dirty diapers in the bin that start smelling after a day (we live in a hot country)
Do you have to do more than toss them in the washer?
(I know nothing about the topic, lol.)
You need to de-shit them (it can be quite runny).
You don’t want to wash them with anything else. But you need enough to justify the run.
You need to store them till they can be washed (smelling the whole time).
Babies need a lot of nappies.
All of this is at the most exhausting time in the parents lives!
I don’t think anyone is using cloth diapers for frugal reasons, but rather for waste and environmental reasons that disposable diapers create (It takes hundreds of years for each disposable diaper to decompose, and they are made with plastic and carcinogens). I’ve looked into the topic, and although it might discount the cost of constant purchase of disposables, the high cost of the cloth ones themselves as well as the cost of running the washing loads mean the reason to switch wouldn’t be for frugal reasons but to stop the influx of disposable diapers into landfills and comfort of the baby wearing it.
Flights with connections. Flying has become so tedious, frustrating, stressful, that saving money by spending yet more hours dealing with it, just isn’t worth it. I’d sooner cancel the trip
I saved $500 per ticket on an international flight for my girlfriend and I and the extra connection should have only added a few hours to the trip.
Then they cancelled my flight, and I got stranded in another country (Canada), spent over 10 hours in the airport getting a new flight, lost two days of the trip, which were the best days, lost the money I paid for the hotel for those days, and I only get a few days off a year and that was how I spent several of them.
The Europeans and Canadians on the flight got their flight comped. Being an American, I had to fight for a meal ticket that didn’t even cover the cost of two sodas. This was pre-pandemic too.
I disagree because you can save so much money. But my limit is one short stop, unless I am flying to the other side of the world and need a few days’ break.
I’ve only had a flight delayed once on a layover, it was a few hours but meant getting home at 3 am instead of 11 pm and was fucking miserable. I can’t even imagine if it was 5-10 hours or a day. For a family of four we could probably save $400 on round trip cross country (USA) but I would rather pay and have a direct flight. And the shitty discount airlines are not worth a bloodclot in my leg when I can’t bend them for 3.5 hours…even an inch of extra room can make a difference when it’s almost 4 hours in a tin can.
I just flew for the first time in quite a while and honestly its not bad. Just make sure you follow directions and don’t cut it too close on leaving on time and it’ll probably be fine. Get to the airport 1-2 hours before your flight and by that point anything that happens you just ask the nearest employee nicely what to do
Except when your connection departs in 1h and there are 100+ in line for customs + other 50 in line for TSA checks. I still think they are worth it most of the time, but when flying internationally, I get why people tend to avoid connections as they can be super stressful.