Create Personal Ways to Maximize Your Frugal Lifestyle’s Impact

I decided not to write a post about my “Top 500 frugal living hacks” because there’s a plethora of articles all over the internet with exactly that content. Most of these tips are blatantly obvious. Take “staycations”, use coupons, and make coffee at home.  Instead, I want to challenge you to think outside of the box a little and consider some more personal areas in your own life that you could shave off some expense without losing too much value.

I’m not suggesting that you follow these tips verbatim, but here are some of my personal long-winded stories relating to frugal hacks. I hope they inspire you to examine your own lifestyle and see where you could make some immediate changes.

If it Ain’t Broke…

Many moons ago, I dated a girl who was hesitant to take me home to meet the parents. After months (or maybe even years) it was time.  I immediately realized why there was resistance; the parents’ house looked like it was straight out of the 70’s!  They were still using all the dishes and appliances that they got at their wedding reception some 30 years earlier.  They were very welcoming, very nice, great people. The girl was embarrassed, but I was intrigued.  The parents were business owners and had excellent financial sense. It was then I had my first glimpse at frugal living as an outsider, but we broke up and I never got to really pick their brains as mentors in this path.

This is going to sound like a Rich Dad, Poor Dad scenario, but my next meet the parents adventure had the complete opposite family situation.  Her parents had a huge house in a beautiful neighborhood of professional athletes, doctors, lawyers, fancy cars, new everything.  Her dad was complaining that his brand-new fancy stainless steel coffee maker carafe was flaking.  I was pretty sure stainless steel wasn’t corroding his coffee pot that he left on 24/7 for the first week of ownership. It was clearly just burnt coffee.  He was fed up with it and got a new one while we were there.  He offered me the old one. I don’t know if this was a test or not, but it was like a $300 coffee maker at the time and I was a broke college kid so yeah I took it!

We’ve already covered in my very first blog post Most Important Reasons Why You Should be Frugal Too that I’m no coffee snob. While I enjoy a fresh roasted cup of joe on occasion, my daily bean water is store brand pre-ground.  Even better if it’s on sale or there’s a coupon, stock up! Believe it or not, over 10 years later that same fancy stainless-steel coffee maker still brews my morning indulgence every day. Sure, the lid requires a special trick to pour and there’s a couple dabs of silicone sealing the broken off water level tube, but it’s survived a handful of moves across the country and still functions “perfectly”.

I get no additional value added to my life from buying a new coffee maker. In fact, I’ve been gifted the single cup kind multiple times and always ended up selling them. I hope I’m not jinxing the ol’ girl by writing this post, but it’s kind of a symbol of my lifestyle now. I intend to continue using it as long as possible.  All my close friends and family will recognize this coffee maker and laugh at how cheap I am, but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!

And if it is broke, even if it’s not yours, make a DIY side hustle out of fixing it for someone else or to resell.

Diverge from the Social Norms…

Wouldn’t it be nice if you weren’t judged for diverging from the social norms?  There’s this idea of the American dream; graduate college, get a “good” job, get married, house in the suburbs, 2.4 kids, a dog, a white picket fence, and family vacations every summer.  Each one of those items has some underwritten social expectations that go along with it.  When you challenge those norms, boy do people have something to say about it.  You don’t want to go to college?  You don’t want to work a 9-5?  You don’t want to ever get married or have kids? Prepare for backlash.

The Setup

The big wedding tradition is based on what my wife calls “hallmark holiday” expectations. If you buy a wedding cake it’ll cost $1,000, but if it’s a casual Friday night gathering cake it’s $100. Same with buying cards, flowers, chocolates, and gifts for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day etc. Why not celebrate your loved ones everyday through small selfless (and frugal) acts that mean far more? Let the judgements roll in because my wife would rather me do the dishes without asking than bring home flowers.  But that’s okay with me.

Being frugal comes with its own set of judgments.  One of my favorite ways my wife and I challenged social norms was to elope.  We started to plan out a traditional wedding but when it was time to put down deposits and start committing to the expenses, we had a deep conversation about why we were doing this. Neither of us wanted a big wedding.  We decided that a big wedding wasn’t for us at all, both figuratively and literally.  A big wedding was for our families and for social norms.  Screw social norms, we’ll get to the family part later.

The Execution

So, we got married in a courthouse on our annual summer overlanding road trip.  We were 2,000 miles from home and had only told two key helpers that we needed to support our plan.  The application, license, and ceremony officiant cost a total of $50.  We got dressed up in affordable outfits and took all our own pictures on a cheap selfie stick. I wouldn’t change a single thing about that day.

The same day we had our helper back home send out our announcements that were an invitation to our not-a-reception party. We went off into the back country with no cell reception for the next couple of days to start our epic honeymoon adventures.  We got dressed back up taking pictures along the way at all the beautiful scenic views as if we’d gotten married again at each place.

The Payoff

When we got back into cell coverage our phones blew up with congratulations, words of wisdom from older married couples, and conversely some angry comments about not being told and not being invited.  Sad that they didn’t get to attend our big day, mad that so-and-so didn’t get to be our flower girl, silly unimportant things.  Look, no one was invited, it’s nothing personal!  Everyone’s invited to our party later though.  By the time our not-a-reception party rolled around all angst had been forgotten, or forgiven, or hidden deep and never mentioned again.  Which is fine by us because we would do it all again in a heartbeat.

The result of defying social norms?  We got married in a low stress and anxiety situation, focusing only on the true meaning behind it all.  We came out on the other side with ZERO wedding debt. Compare this to most weddings now-a-days costing upwards of $20,000 for a “small” traditional wedding.  We still had all our closest friends and family around to celebrate in a backyard BBQ party that was much more our style and probably got to invite even more people this way!  We’re some people’s feelings hurt in the moment?  Sure, but there’s no reason that making others ideal wedding day come true should drive you into debt when instead you could be starting your new chapter of life off in the right financial direction.

Side note, I need to dedicate an entire post to “wedding registry hacks” but the number one benefit we utilized was the Amazon Wedding Registry. You can add EVERYTHING to it with varying degrees of visibility then after your event anything not purchased is eligible for a deep discount (subject to change, I’ve noticed it’s already less than our reward). Return all the duplicates and cash in your gift cards for stuff you actually need.

Create an Amazon Wedding Registry

Health and Safety

There’s a certain stigma that comes with cost savings around anything including the words health and/or safety.  Well guess what, producers know that and use it against consumers to coerce them into spending more than they really need to.

Wear a helmet, wear a seatbelt, wear a life jacket, wear your PPE (personal protective equipment for those that don’t have to take endless trainings for work) you only get one head, one life, and two eyes. Don’t overspend on a bubble to live in when the chances of you being just fine outside of that bubble are extremely high. Especially for my American readers, our living circumstances have never been more sanitary, regulated, and safe.  We brag about our freedoms but rely on governing bodies and consumer agencies to control the market that we buy into.  On the off chance someone still ends up injured, we sue!

All joking aside, following the bare minimum of what is actually allowed in our country will keep your health and safety well above par with previous generations and much of the rest of world.  So, eat some dirt, strengthen your immune system, focus on your health and safety on a macro scale.

One could argue that without being alive there’s really no reason to be frugal and retire early.  I agree, but here’s an example. A helmet brings value to your life by preserving it for those that engage in high head risk activities. You wouldn’t wear a helmet in case you fell off your bed at night, would you? You only need to spend in this category where the value is extremely high.

Personal Appearance

Another huge area of stigma is personal appearance.  I don’t mean save money by never showering, please do that.  I’m talking about the amount of focus and money spent on an outwardly appearance.  Beauty and fashion are made popular by people who a.) can afford it and b.) it’s beneficial to their career, to make them more money.  For most regular people, there’s minimal impact of their appearance on their career past the job interview.  

In fact, unless you’re looking in a mirror all day even you don’t get to enjoy your own awe-inspiring visual appearance.  It’s strictly to please others.  But Fill! Looking dapper improves my mood, it gets me free drinks, pleasing others is rewarding to me too.  I hear you; this is the balancing act of bringing value to your life versus spending your savings on frivolous products with a poor return on investment. 

Ladies does spending $100 on a hair restyle, $500 on a cute outfit, and whatever nails cost (?) really make getting a free $8 dollar drink worth it?  News flash, your potential suitors aren’t going to understand when you “dye your hair it’s natural color” either. There are plenty of ways to be fashionable on a budget. I’m not into that sort of thing myself but if it brings value to you, just make sure you are getting the most for your dollar.

Personally, I frugal hack this category by taking, you guessed it, the DIY approach.  No I don’t make my own clothes, unless we’re talking cut off t-shirts.  But I have only paid for a haircut twice in the past ~15 years.  A Walmart clipper kit and some YouTube training have served me and even some friends well over the years.  Assuming a $20 with tip barber cut monthly, instead investing with a 7% annual return, I’ve potentially saved $3,600 and made another $2,657.28 off investing that saved amount over the years. 

Extrapolate that over my average life expectancy minus the years before I knew better and we’re looking at a free +$200k to pass down to my kids.  Crazy isn’t it?

I could also be considered as a fashion minimalist. I don’t own a business suit. I wear my socks until they’re more hole than sock. My normal t-shirts are the freebies from various events over the years, some dating back as far as high school. As mentioned, when they’re too far gone, they get converted to cut offs or shop rags. My brother and I wore the same button-down shirt in our first driver’s license pictures, and I wore “the shirt” until last year. I would estimate that 95% of my wardrobe has been handed down or gifted.  For my own desired value level in personal appearance, I simply don’t need to spend anything additional, keeping this category very close to zero.

Wrap Up

These stories are just my own personal frugal hacks to get you thinking.  We’re all about “creating a value filled life” here so they may be the complete inverse of your personal values and that’s okay.  Just remember that the more spend categories you value or falsely continue to think you value, the further in the distance your financial independence will become.