Frugal Living Blog Home
Hello, and welcome to the frugal living blog. Here, you’ll find interesting tips about frugal living. And while I realize, there are many sites that talk about frugal living, it is my goal to make this site a bit different. How I intend to do that, is by keeping things honest. Anyways, things are organized by category so you can choose from the menu below to get started or, scroll down below to read more about this site.
With food prices going through the roof these days, everyone is looking to save a little money in the kitchen. By learning good knife skills, and proper portion size, it’s easy to make healthy, low-cost meals.
The Frugal Shopper is a bastion on resistance to modern marketing hype and peer pressure. Learn how to shop without getting suckered.
If it ain’t cookin or shoppin, it’s in here. Great tips, from dumpster diving (no kidding) to re-purposing old things into new, abound.
Did you know that if you’re uninsured and meet certain income requirements, you may qualify for free or discounted health-care? Use our nation-wide, state by state, list of Hospital Charity Care Programs to find out.
So What is Frugal Living?
In short, frugal living means being fearless. In Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret in the World, he quotes psychologist Rollo May, “The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice but conformity.” Frugal living, is having the willpower to not conform. It seems quite silly to me, that as a child, when I would get into trouble I would often use the excuse, “everyone was doing it.” To which, my parents often replied if everybody was jumping off a bridge would you jump too. But to people these days, the answer appears to be yes. The problem is that we confuse our appearance with our identities. You see it everyday in the way that people dress. Some people, are “emotional,” and, “artistic,” and choose to dress that way, I.e. emo or goth. Other people, want to project the image of a good mom, so they drive a minivan. The “rich guy”, has an expensive suit and a Mercedes. He’s of course missing the point. If you’re truly rich, you can afford to have someone drive you around in your “luxury” car. The fact is that even counterculture is created in the corporate boardroom.
Doing what’s in your best interest, in the long run, is what’s really at the heart of frugality. This doesn’t always have to mean going without however. Take going to restaurants for example. Looking at restaurant trends reported over the last 50 years, shows an average annual increase of 20% in the restaurant industry. Most of the poll numbers I’ve seen, indicate that people today, are eating out on average, two or three times a week. If you’re trying to be frugal however, you might try to cut that down to once a month. Other ways of being frugal, include commuting by bicycle, learning how to prepare meals at home, learning how to repair things on your own, dumpster diving, and other kinds of self-reliance tasks.
What This Site is NOT About.
I love nature. I think the trees are best left, not cut down, the mountains not leveled, and animals not needlessly killed. This site is not however, about environmental issues. In fact, most of the time environmental issues are a big scam. Those same corporate giants that are creating the counterculture, are creating the Green culture as well. Do you really think Toyota’s motivation behind creating the Prius was 100% altruistic? If it had been, the car would most likely be completely electric powered, and be available at an extremely low price, to make it available to a wide range of people, and thus reducing its “impact,” on the environment. Rather, the company became aware of a new and growing demographic of people concerned about the environment, and created a niche product to meet the wants of those people. It makes Toyota look caring, still relies on oil (so oil people are happy)—as hundreds of thousands of people line up to make Toyota a little richer. Living frugally, means that I ride a bicycle to work, out of purely economic reasons, not because I’m trying to be a green weeny. I have to say this though, because for whatever reason, these days, frugality is associated with environmentalism.
What do you mean by, keeping things honest?
Well for starters, I am by no means a rich person. Growing up, we weren’t poor, meaning that we are on some kind of government program, but we weren’t rich either. My first car was old and of course used, which I bought myself, working in a fast food restaurant. My family also couldn’t afford many of the things that people associate with high school memories — things like a class ring letter jacket, or high school yearbook. Today things haven’t changed much. So everything that’s being presented here on this site, it’s something that I have personal experience with as well as something that helps me live frugally. If you’d like to contact me, I’d love to hear from you, so drop me a line at frugalpig[at]frugallivingblog[dot]com. Thank you and I hope you enjoy the site.
Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
-Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the comment Brian. I might add, that occasionally, you might have to go in and give it a blast with the compressed air again as over time, it’ll get fouled up again.
So happy I found your frugal living blog. Wow! Some good stuff on here to get me thinking and even challenge. Appreciate it! – Carrie
I’m so glad I came across your site. It’s hard to find good frugal blogs on the internet. My other favorite money saving sites are
1. BlackFriday
2. Groupon
3. Frugallivingblog
I also just read your post about cleaning a Wacom Intuos3 mouse. Saved me a good sized chunk of change. I am also a Graphic Designer (sort of) but I only use the pen for a few crucial types of tasks, whereas the mouse serves me better for everything else. Thanks so much for posting those instructions. I imagine there are scores of other designers using the Intuos3 who have been saved by your blog.
I may just add you to my RSS reader. We can all stand to live more frugally these days. Thanks again!
I don’t plant a huge garden. Our family only uses the basic vegetables. I’m planning on green beans, onions, cucumbers, 3 varieties of peppers, and possibly a potted grape tomato plant – my soil does NOT like tomato plants regardless of what I do with it.
Hiya Ryan,
That makes me happy that I could help you out. I live in Japan and getting a hold of spares is especially difficult. I was at the point that if I ruined the mouse it didn’t matter because the performance was so poor anyway. But again, I’m glad to help. Oh, and just so you know, there are places selling the intuos3 mouse for less than $139. If you try google shopping, you’ll see prices starting at $53 and going up to $139. I’m not vouching for the vendors… just saying there are options.
My wife tells me that I need to be a little frugal sometimes, and she’s right. But I want what I want. I don’t go looking for sales or reduced pricing or anything like that, and that burns her up because she’s frugal. I really enjoyed reading your blog.
I just read the Cleaning a WACOM Intuos3 mouse article. Absolutely wonderful! I was ready to send my mouse out a window, as the “left click” button was starting to give me trouble. I am an Illustrator & Graphic Designer, so I have been using the pen mostly, but still use the mouse for day to fay computer navigation. I was on the verge of getting a new one myself, which was going to set me back $139 just for the mouse! Thanks to your blog, I have it up and clicking like the thing just came out of its factory box.
Thanks again!
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