I grew up in a middle-class home. My father was a statitician (manager), and my mother was a teacher (she stayed at home while me and my brother where young).
My parents where frugal. They bought things rather than borrow for them, they went to garage sales, built sheds and fences rather than bought them, and lived under their means.
I rent a place for 425CN$/month (about 350US$), cable/internet/utilities/etc included. It is 2 rooms in a 2 storey house, living with the owner, with a 2nd renter in the basement.
This has saved me an incalculateable amount of money. Find a homeowner who is renting where they are living. Make certain they aren't a goob.
Don't buy things you don't need. Don't pick up expensive tastes -- they are no better than cheap tastes to your happiness in the long term.
Buy a loaf of fresh bread, and freeze it. A toaster will turn it into tasty toast for a sandwich, and frozen bread keeps for weeks.
For food, buy easy to prepare things, and some spices. Pick up a spice jar and try it out. Cook more food than you'll eat at a sitting and eat leftovers -- once reheated chicken tastes as good as frozen entrees.
Hot spices, if you like them, can turn even the most simply cooked food into something tasty & tangy. =)
Maintain your car.
Value the potential to own as much as actually owning. Owning isn't all it's cracked up to be. Being able to look at a car, and say 'I could buy that' is power. But once you buy the car, the potential to buy is gone.
Do your duty to keep prices down. When looking at something, think "yes, I could afford that -- but, my job as a consumer is to keep prices down. That price is too high for that good. I'll buy it if it was half that price." You can afford to buy a season of your favourate TV show for 100$... But should you?
When you buy something, it owns you. You are now responsible for it -- be it a car, a house or a DVD. You have to now justify the cost to yourself, and care for it and use it. Being owned by things isn't worth it.
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Originally Posted by TM875
Anyway, I digress. To be truly economically sound, the consumer must balance both savings and spending. Without both, the economy will crumble. Everyone cannot be frugal, or else the system as a whole would fall apart (we need people to spend, and spend a lot) - so don't be afraid to buy that special "i-need-to-have-it" purchase, but make sure that it's within your means, and that it's only a special time thing. Maybe once a month, once every two months, or something like that. If everyone would just spend within thier means, the whole problem of debt would just not exist.
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You personally don't have to be the spender. The frugal person is the one who is winning, the one with the freedom and the choices.
Being a consumer is the quick and easy path, full of temptation and impulse. Being a producer is the high and rewarding one. Join the light side!
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Originally Posted by braisler
My wife and I have been a one car household for almost 6 years now. I can count on one hand the number of times that we have had any kind of conflict over having just the one car.
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And if this is the case, be willing to take a cab if there is a serious conflict. Rare use of cabs is cheaper than maintaining and upkeeping a car for rare use.