Waste Not Want Not Part IV: Extremely Frugal?

Another bit of TV I watched while I was ill last month dealt with people who were extremely frugal.  We're not talking your average everyday frugalites.  These people took frugal to an "Ewwww...." level  and were proud of it!  I thought I'd share a few of the things I recall seeing in this particular show.

Number 1:  It's your twentieth wedding anniversary...How would you feel if you received: a teapot, a card, roses, dinner out, and a funny little toy?  Total spent for this very special day?  Under $15 and that included dinner.  This guy dumpster dived for the tea pot (which truly did look new, I'll give him that) and the roses ( he didn't even try to revive them!), recycled a get well card that was sent to his wife by a co-worker earlier in the year (stapling a business card blank side up over the former giver's name and then signed his own) and bought the toy for $.59...His wife was cool with all this.  She's some woman, if you ask me.  The only request she made was that he not follow a habit of his when he was out at the restaurant: asking other patrons for the foods they had leftover, packing them into take out containers and carrying them home for his own meals.  Collectively: Ewwwww!  And no he didn't follow her request, yes he did ask other patrons for their leftovers.  His wife left the restaurant in tears, embarrassed beyond words.  Her husband said they seldom go out to eat, but I have a feeling that's more because of her horror of this habit of his rather than their extreme frugality.  For the record that gal is a keeper.  She told the camera that she deeply loved this man, odd habits and all, save that one habit when they were eating out.



Guy number two: Unless I miss my guess, this guy has written a book on extreme frugality.  I meant to look it up and now I can't remember his name.  However, he and his wife also were extremely frugal.  They periodically have a no spend period several times a year. During that time they can only use what they already have or find. The husband rides a bicycle nearly every place he goes.  His wife, who worked full time outside the home, took the car each day.   Towards the end of the no spend period he said things get a bit tight in the grocery department, so what does he do?  He forages for salad makings. He also scrabbles around pay phones, laundromats and car washes  (with owners permission) and finds spare change, after he's checked out his own sofa and car seats.  He uses whatever money he finds to buy foodstuffs.  On this particular day he worked about two hours, found about $7 worth of change and took himself off to the butcher where he asked what his money might buy.  Organ meats and goat heads were to be had. Roasted goat head was on the menu for supper that night.  His wife ate heavily of the foraged salad and drank lots of wine which they buy by the carton and decant into a bottle.  Can't blame her, lol.  However, she was satisfied, knowing that the next day they would be buying groceries once more.

Frugalite #3 was a stay at home mom, living on husband's income (under $25,000 a year) with six kids and no form of public assistance.  She too foraged for foods, picking wild onion, dandelion and mustard greens for salad.  She bought all of her groceries at a special store where everything is beyond expiration.  She examined foods carefully looking for any sign of spoilage and determining how far beyond expiration each item was.  She leaned hard towards those that had either just expired or were within two weeks (for cheeses and snack foods and chocolate chips).  During the filming of this episode, she made the salad from the foraged greens, homemade pizza and cookies from scratch.  She swapped baby sitting with other parents for free time.  And they did not buy any paper products at all.  For the bathroom they kept a basket of clean cloths for the purpose of wiping, with a bucket under the basket meant for soaking used cloths.  She simply washed a load of cloths by themselves as one would cloth diapers.

During the taping of this show the mother was babysitting for a new mom in the co-op.  She made it plain to her from the start that they didn't buy toilet paper, showed her the basket of cloths, told her how they disposed of them/washed and reused.  The mom gave her a long hard look but left her children with this frugal mom.  I am sure the cleanliness of her home and children overall were convincing enough that this odd practice of frugality would not bring harm to the new mom's children.

In each case, the families involved were debt free (except the young mother who was rapidly reducing their mortgage).  The two husbands spent all of their day foraging, digging, delving and bartering.  The young mom incorporated frugality into her daily routine, always cooking from scratch, shopping for foods only at scratch and dint stores, making her own diapers and covers, and reusing whatever she could.

So how far would you go for frugality?  In at least two cases, the frugality was a way of life that had little to do with the need to be frugal.  In the third instance, the young mother certainly could not have afforded to pay for child care and gone to work.  Hers was, in my opinion, a case of doing what must be done.

I know how far I've gone for the sake of being poor, and how far I'm willing to go for the sake of being frugal, but I do not practice the full range of things I did at one time.  And frankly there are places I just don't think I'd willingly go for the sake of saving money alone.  What I did take away from these shows was an appreciation of how each family dedicated themselves to their particular savings methods.