Frugal is the New Cheap

My late father was a cheapskate. He was also way ahead of his time, because he practiced dumpster-diving before there were actually dumpsters. Every Saturday, we'd go to the local dump and scavenge for goodies. He'd stand there in his cheap suit (he always wore suits, a white shirt and a tie) and point out what he wanted us to get. Like little otters-slash-retrievers, we'd dive into the pile and come up with three-legged chairs, slightly moldy couch cushions, handle-less tools and pieces of bent chicken wire. He'd throw it into the back of our Nash Rambler station wagon, bring it home and fix it up so that we could use it.

Unfortunately, he wasn't very handy, so our house always looked like it was decorated by a manic bag lady. Not only did the couch cushions sag, they also produced mushrooms when the roof leaked. Eating was like an Olympic event - and don't forget, we didn't have steroids - because it took superhuman skill to balance on the tottering chairs and get food onto the bent forks and spoons. Luckily for us, my mother wasn't a very good cook and we never had a lot of money for groceries, so we ate a lot of sandwiches and finger food.

However, one November, my father announced that we were going to have Indian Pudding for Thanksgiving dinner dessert and he produced a very dented can of the stuff that he had found when he'd stopped by the dump on his way home from work. The can bulged, suspiciously, but he said that wouldn't matter. He was wrong. It mattered enough to almost put us all into the hospital. We were so sick that we all lay around on the floor, each with our own little basin or bowl, for two days. Even after that, we tottered around weakly all through our Thanksgiving vacation from school and my father called in sick for three days. Because he didn't get paid if he didn't work, he lost three day's pay, which was certainly more than the cost of a can of Indian pudding.To me, this is a very good illustration of the difference between being frugal and being cheap to the point that it impinges on your quality of life. It's okay to be a cheapskate in some areas, but risking death to save fifty-nine cents isn't cheap, it's mental illness.

However, with gas prices up, food prices up, our taxes more than double what they were when we bought our house six years ago, our income the same and a 17 yr old getting his license and going onto our auto insurance, we know that we have to cut down. We also realize that we have to get serious about selling this big old house with its 60 acres, so that we can buy something smaller and easier to keep up.We've found a realtor who thinks she can sell the place more successfully than our first realtor did and we've all been scouring the Net for frugal tips.

One site that has tons of links, advice and resources is The Dollar Stretcher. Another good place for frugalistas and wannabe cheapskates is The Frugal Underground. The Simple Dollar makes a lot of cents (pun intended) and then there's the godmother of squeezing your dollars 'til the eagles scream i.e. Frugal Living at about.com. This site is where they have an article titled How to Ditch Your TV and Save Millions and a section called Frugal Living as an Extreme Sport. (I think the Thanksgiving Day Disaster with the canned pudding would have qualified my father for that.)

I save money on food by checking out the sales circulars and being aware of how much things usually cost. If I see something we use at a much lower price, I stock up. If I have coupons for it, that's even better. I shop the bakery outlet (or the Used Bread store, as my kids call it). I know when the organic meats are marked down (Wednesday and Sunday at our favorite supermarket) and I show up then, fend off the other aging hippies who are jonesing for cheap organic vittles, buy a bunch of chicken haunches or pork butts and freeze them.

Like to eat out? Who doesn't? But it's really pricey, especially if you have kids. The simplest solution to that is eating out without the kids. (Hey, I finally found an advantage to sending kids to school instead of homeschooling!) At most of the chains, lunch is a lot cheaper than dinner. At Pizzeria Uno and probably at other places too, there are snack hours - 4-7pm and 10pm to closing for Uno- when appetizers are really cheap. At our local Uno, you can get a snack-sized Mediterranean flatbread pizza for $2.99 and cheap drafts. Takes me right back to my 20's when I hung out with my friends, drinking drafts and eating bar snacks.

Look for lunch buffets with discounts for kids. Asian restaurants around here usually have a day when they take a dollar off the buffet price or kids eat cheaper or they have drink specials. We drink water at Asian restaurants, though, and the free hot tea . The best way to save money on eating out is by bringing your own sandwiches and drinks and just buying a really cheap dessert. Think Little Debbie or Hostess.

Even jaded kids can put up with a picnic from home, if they get to pick out Twinkies or Snowballs or some other sweet treat that practically glows in the dark with sugar and chemicals. I admit that I have a weakness for those raspberry Twinkie clones, even though I know that the coconut is probably just some kind of shredded wood fiber impregnated with faux coconut essence and the only time raspberries are that color red is when they're infected with botrytis mold.

I guess being frugal is just being more creative and less impulsive with money. Delaying gratification and being more mature about financial choices. No wonder I have so much trouble with it.

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