10-14-2005, 09:04 AM
Hi, Count,
Wow, now here's a thread I can really relate to!
Having spent much of my life going to school of one type or other, at least part-time, I've HAD to watch my pennies carefully, to the point that it's become pretty much second nature. Depressingly, money has ended up being even tighter since I finally finished with school (well, maybe... :blink: ). I suspect if I won a lottery jackpot, and had a few million dollars in the bank, I'd still probably practice some of my tightwad ways, they've become so ingrained in me.
Yeah, it's not uncommon for me to go to my usual grocery store, and 80-100% of what I buy is on sale. I may spend $15, and the store receipt helpfully tells me that I saved $15 that day via sale prices. I suspect that chain loses money most of the time I shop there. :w00t: Coupons on sale items are icing on the cake, though I'm not quite as regular about using coupons as I used to be.
Most of the computer hardware I buy is not only on sale, but has a rebate with it. Same with non-game software. And I make a point to redeem rebates; I probably have a 95+% success rate redeeming rebates.
I don't buy computer games when they first come out (D2 is the only game in the past 10 years that I've bought within 6 months of it coming out - and that was partly because I got involved in the last stage of Beta-testing of D2, and had loved playing the Barbarian in Act 1; I had to see what the rest of the game was like!).
However, usually I wait for the price to drop significantly, like down to the $20 or under range. In fact, my usual upper limit for a game is about $10-15, unless it's a bundle of some kind. I occasionally pick up a used copy of something, either on eBay or at a local store (although over the last year, used PC games have pretty much disappeared from local stores to make room for more console crap :angry: ).
I haven't bought a new book for ages. $6-7 for a paperback, when I know a couple of places I can buy used ones for $.25-.50? Forget it! Plus, I have library cards for three libraries, at one of which I can check out VHS tapes and DVD's for free.
"Screw Bic and their damned expensive wallet draining disposable pens."
Gee, Doc, you pay money for disposable pens? I still have much of a box of disposable Bic pens that I paid 1 penny for a few years back (some kind of promotion, IIRC, I bought something else and the pens were a near give-away). I admire your zeal on making your own ink; more, I envy the energy level you apparently have. First your salsa thread, now ink...wow.
Heh, my apartment is furnished mostly in used furniture, several pieces of which I have appropriated from the top or edges of garbage piles (I do have SOME standards :D ). Tighten a few screws, apply some glue or nails in strategic places, and voila... perfectly adequate stuff. I sometimes can't believe what people send to landfills.
In fact, since I've had an interest in electronics for 40+ years, if I see some piece of electronics in my apartment dumpster, I'll often fish it out and take it inside to dismantle it, partly just to see how things are put together, but also to scavenge parts I might have a use somehow, or can recycle. I admit, a lot of the stuff eventually goes back into the dumpster, but at least I save some things from going to the landfill. I have several yogurt containers filled with small screws, nuts, washers, etc. scavenged from dismantled equipment over the years. Anyone need some? I probably have several life-times worth at the rate I find use for them. :lol:
Oh yeah, I have bought a few plastic storage containers (Rubbermaid and ilk), but I use scavenged containers for a lot of purposes.
Umm, I get most of my napkins and toothpicks from places where I "eat out," which doesn't happen often, but cooking happens to be something I don't really enjoy, so I eat out cheap now and then. For me, it's a real splurge (a couple to few times a year) to go to a buffet-type place and blow $10 for a meal.
I even "recycle" toothpicks - I prefer the round kind, and when the tips start fraying, I pick up a pocketknife and whittle new points to them! Can anyone beat that? :blush: [although, this might come partly from being a farm kid who always carried a pocketknife, and who sometimes killed slack time in the hay and grain fields by whittling twigs, straws, etc.]
I suppose part of my thrifty nature comes from my parents. They both grew up on farms in North Dakota during the depression of the '30's, and started their own farm there in the '40's, during WWII. Even though they never preached about such things, I think just from the example they set, all of their kids tend to be thrifty and self-reliant. Although I don't recall them using it often, they pretty much lived by the old adage "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
When a piece of farm equipment reached the point where it couldn't be fixed anymore, it got parked someplace out of the way, and served as a source of parts to fix up other equipment. Or, sometimes my dad made stuff from scratch, and used, whenever possible, parts & pieces from junked equipment. Same with buildings. If a building was too ramshackle to use, it got carefully dismantled, with as much of the wood saved as possible, to be reused elsewhere. Periodically, he would load up a pickup with metal scrap that he finally couldn't see a use for, and take it to a scrap-metal dealer.
My dad was sort of a jack-of-all-trades. I think, not so much by nature, but because usually there just wasn't money to hire someone to do things, so he learned how to do them himself. Mechanic, carpenter, electrician, mason, veterinarian, welder, ... Plus 4-H leader, school board member, township board member, election board member, ...oh, yeah, and farmer! :) I'm sure if I thought about it more, I could add lots to the list.
Well, this post has taken an unexpected detour. I think it was coincidence, but my dad died just over a year ago, and I guess this is as close as I've come to writing a (well-deserved) eulogy or tribute. Hope you don't mind.
So, all of you self-admitted tightwads and cheapskates out there, let's give a big rousing Bronx Cheer to the "reality" TV show, "I want to be a Hilton!" [gag, retch]
Regards,
Dako-ta
"A witty saying proves nothing."
-- Voltaire
Wow, now here's a thread I can really relate to!
Having spent much of my life going to school of one type or other, at least part-time, I've HAD to watch my pennies carefully, to the point that it's become pretty much second nature. Depressingly, money has ended up being even tighter since I finally finished with school (well, maybe... :blink: ). I suspect if I won a lottery jackpot, and had a few million dollars in the bank, I'd still probably practice some of my tightwad ways, they've become so ingrained in me.
Count Duckula,Oct 14 2005, 02:50 AM Wrote:I'm glad to know that I'm not the only Lurker who takes retail gimmicks and uses them against the corporations. So let's discuss. I'll go first.
It doesn't get bought unless there's a sale and/or a coupon, preferably both. And I love matching ads. The local discount grocery stores take coupons too--imagine buying four packs of toilet paper at the price of one!
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Yeah, it's not uncommon for me to go to my usual grocery store, and 80-100% of what I buy is on sale. I may spend $15, and the store receipt helpfully tells me that I saved $15 that day via sale prices. I suspect that chain loses money most of the time I shop there. :w00t: Coupons on sale items are icing on the cake, though I'm not quite as regular about using coupons as I used to be.
Most of the computer hardware I buy is not only on sale, but has a rebate with it. Same with non-game software. And I make a point to redeem rebates; I probably have a 95+% success rate redeeming rebates.
I don't buy computer games when they first come out (D2 is the only game in the past 10 years that I've bought within 6 months of it coming out - and that was partly because I got involved in the last stage of Beta-testing of D2, and had loved playing the Barbarian in Act 1; I had to see what the rest of the game was like!).
However, usually I wait for the price to drop significantly, like down to the $20 or under range. In fact, my usual upper limit for a game is about $10-15, unless it's a bundle of some kind. I occasionally pick up a used copy of something, either on eBay or at a local store (although over the last year, used PC games have pretty much disappeared from local stores to make room for more console crap :angry: ).
I haven't bought a new book for ages. $6-7 for a paperback, when I know a couple of places I can buy used ones for $.25-.50? Forget it! Plus, I have library cards for three libraries, at one of which I can check out VHS tapes and DVD's for free.
"Screw Bic and their damned expensive wallet draining disposable pens."
Gee, Doc, you pay money for disposable pens? I still have much of a box of disposable Bic pens that I paid 1 penny for a few years back (some kind of promotion, IIRC, I bought something else and the pens were a near give-away). I admire your zeal on making your own ink; more, I envy the energy level you apparently have. First your salsa thread, now ink...wow.
Heh, my apartment is furnished mostly in used furniture, several pieces of which I have appropriated from the top or edges of garbage piles (I do have SOME standards :D ). Tighten a few screws, apply some glue or nails in strategic places, and voila... perfectly adequate stuff. I sometimes can't believe what people send to landfills.
In fact, since I've had an interest in electronics for 40+ years, if I see some piece of electronics in my apartment dumpster, I'll often fish it out and take it inside to dismantle it, partly just to see how things are put together, but also to scavenge parts I might have a use somehow, or can recycle. I admit, a lot of the stuff eventually goes back into the dumpster, but at least I save some things from going to the landfill. I have several yogurt containers filled with small screws, nuts, washers, etc. scavenged from dismantled equipment over the years. Anyone need some? I probably have several life-times worth at the rate I find use for them. :lol:
Oh yeah, I have bought a few plastic storage containers (Rubbermaid and ilk), but I use scavenged containers for a lot of purposes.
Umm, I get most of my napkins and toothpicks from places where I "eat out," which doesn't happen often, but cooking happens to be something I don't really enjoy, so I eat out cheap now and then. For me, it's a real splurge (a couple to few times a year) to go to a buffet-type place and blow $10 for a meal.
I even "recycle" toothpicks - I prefer the round kind, and when the tips start fraying, I pick up a pocketknife and whittle new points to them! Can anyone beat that? :blush: [although, this might come partly from being a farm kid who always carried a pocketknife, and who sometimes killed slack time in the hay and grain fields by whittling twigs, straws, etc.]
I suppose part of my thrifty nature comes from my parents. They both grew up on farms in North Dakota during the depression of the '30's, and started their own farm there in the '40's, during WWII. Even though they never preached about such things, I think just from the example they set, all of their kids tend to be thrifty and self-reliant. Although I don't recall them using it often, they pretty much lived by the old adage "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
When a piece of farm equipment reached the point where it couldn't be fixed anymore, it got parked someplace out of the way, and served as a source of parts to fix up other equipment. Or, sometimes my dad made stuff from scratch, and used, whenever possible, parts & pieces from junked equipment. Same with buildings. If a building was too ramshackle to use, it got carefully dismantled, with as much of the wood saved as possible, to be reused elsewhere. Periodically, he would load up a pickup with metal scrap that he finally couldn't see a use for, and take it to a scrap-metal dealer.
My dad was sort of a jack-of-all-trades. I think, not so much by nature, but because usually there just wasn't money to hire someone to do things, so he learned how to do them himself. Mechanic, carpenter, electrician, mason, veterinarian, welder, ... Plus 4-H leader, school board member, township board member, election board member, ...oh, yeah, and farmer! :) I'm sure if I thought about it more, I could add lots to the list.
Well, this post has taken an unexpected detour. I think it was coincidence, but my dad died just over a year ago, and I guess this is as close as I've come to writing a (well-deserved) eulogy or tribute. Hope you don't mind.
So, all of you self-admitted tightwads and cheapskates out there, let's give a big rousing Bronx Cheer to the "reality" TV show, "I want to be a Hilton!" [gag, retch]
Regards,
Dako-ta
"A witty saying proves nothing."
-- Voltaire