After raising our own softball team of kids...the wife and I stll have not let go of our frugal ways. Cause now we are working on a football team of grandchildren
I truly beleive their is a big difference between being frugal and going on the cheap.
My favorite clothing store has been and continues to be GoodWill or Salvation Army thrift shops in fancy neighborhoods....nice clothes cheap prices. I have brooks brothers suits, that cost me 3 dollars....brand new gucci shoes,,,,and various other fancy labels that i prolly paid 1/1000 of the retail price...
My favorite sport is dumpster diving behind nice private colleges during exam time, I get books, computers, refridgerators, microwaves, ipods, u name it.....and yes i have been known to resell them, disinfect and give to my kids or take them over to the goodwill, or give them away...i just cant stand the wastefulness.
Late Garage sale is fun - u stroll aorund after the garage sales and see what they toss,,and trash day in fancy neighborhoods during october and november has wonderful finds...(people redecorate and toss) If I can not use it i will call and see if a friend will want it beore i pick it up,,if it is to good to pass up the goodwill loves the donation.
I also love auctions, cause If i do have to pay for something it will not be a retail price. Best one is
www.govdeals.com and yes i am so tempted to buy a fireturck and give it to a small town cause the prices are so low.
But i have purchased my aerator for the lawn thru them, my kids all drive bought at auction cars....maximum i ever paid was 1900 for a 2002 saturn sport coupe.... and yes they run beautifully u just have to know what u r looking for. the saturn had a little bullet hole in the door panel....a buddy of mine fixed it....and i must confess the wife loves antiques..so we go to a dealers auction and part of the cardboard box has that stuff in it....
I adopted this motto about 4 years ago "nothing is worth having unless you can get it for free'... and for the most part a very large part of my fish room furnishings in the cardboard box has been gotten for free.....
The addition to the garage (which is ready to be done) I have obtained all the wood, electric wiring, switches, doors(specific to the plans i drew) over the past 18 months by dumpster diving, asking construction sites for their scrap, picking up the most beautiful oak hand hewn beams that are 10 feet long that someone set out for the garbage cause they were redecorating. It appears i will have to go to the habitat thrift store to buy the windows...so the entire addition will cost me 200 dollars for the 4 windows...(they also have wonderful tools on sale....i have some great wood planers i picked up for 5 or 6 dollars)
My greatest find has been six 8 foot high fish tanks, that i picked up this past summer....the guys at PETCO even helped me get them out of the dumpster and in my truck...
I am currently building a fish wall with them....(I like projects not fix its).
my grandfather and father were both frugal....and their ability to make something from nothing has always been soemthing i respected.
I also however beleive frugality does not mean cheap or lacking.....
My family is frugal so we can .... go to the opera,,,go to concerts,,,have an entire room of fish tanks, pay for the grandchild to go to a pre school...to me frugality is a setting fo priorities.