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?)

2 points

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.

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0 points

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.

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1 point

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.

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1 point

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.

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1 point
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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)

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1 point

Searching for the cheapest gas station. Too much time and gas.

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1 point

Just ask around, there’s some that are consistently cheap. Then do the math. Where I live, the local station charges 2.40 a litre, and one 15 minutes away charges 1.60 a litre.

That’s an easy one.

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1 point

In Australia there are apps that show cheapest prices near you, so at least there’s not too much time and effort involved.

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1 point

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.

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1 point

Washing dishes manually: a dishwasher is more efficient and saves me time and energy. It’s mostly old people that keep recommending this.

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0 points

Growing your own food. The only way to make that shit pay is to groom a cult to do it for you, large-scale.

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1 point

Eh, it really depends. I assume you don’t mean all your food needs here. It’s pretty easy in a lot of climates and situations to supplement nutrition and/or flavor by growing even one or two plants. Source: grew peppers, spinach, etc. on my tiny tokyo apartment’s balcony and would gift friends whole plants to put on their balconies/windowsills for the same and now do small-scale farming in rural north Japan.

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1 point

The only thing I’ve successfully grown is tomatoes. And they tasted weird.

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0 points

Cutting sponges in half. It just makes them harder to use, and then already last a long time and cost like $1 each. I’m not going out of my way to save ~$1/month.

Unplugging electronics. I have a kill-a-watt meter and did some math. It took more power for my computer to run the spreadsheet than I’d save by unplugging everything in my house. Electronics have gotten way better at managing phantom power draw.

And I’ll second coupons. The only coupons I look at is the monthly Costco mailer, and I only really look at things I’ll buy in bulk. I try to buy enough to last until the next sale, which has worked out pretty well so far. But I literally don’t look at any other grocery store coupons because I just don’t find much value there.

In fact, most of these frugal “tricks” are worthless. Just focus on the high value lifestyle choices (cooking at home instead of prepared meals, learning to DIY common repairs, etc), and ignore most of penny pinching. In other words, don’t be penny wise and pound foolish.

That said, here are a couple of things that I do think are worthwhile even if the money savings isn’t huge:

  • cut my own hair - takes 15-20 min once a month, which is less time than I’d spend getting to and from the barber; it’s essentially free ($20-30 for clippers, which I’ve used for dozens of hair cuts), but $20/month saved isn’t why I do it, I just hate going to the barber, it just seems to take so much time
  • change my car’s oil - same as hair, it takes ~30 min, and most of that time I’m just sitting inside waiting for oil to drain; I don’t save much money, but I do feel like I save time vs driving to/from the oil change place, and I use high equality OEM filters
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0 points

Never ever follow a cutting your own hair advice.

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0 points

Why not? If you’re fine with a simple haircut, it’s really quite practical. I’m a guy and do a simple taper fade from 1" on top to 1/4" on bottom (similar to this).

My brother did it for years and he got to a VP level role at a large insurance company. If he did a bad job, there’s no way he would’ve gotten that kind of role because it’s as much about personal presentation as it is about competency.

I have my wife check it each time, but I don’t have her do it because I think I do a better job.

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0 points

I’m a guy and do a simple taper fade from 1" on top to 1/4" on bottom

Same here, but a bit shorter than in the picture. I haven’t been to a hairdresser for at least 35 years.

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