All Posts Tagged With: "frugal"

Vintage clothing shopping is awesome … and no, you don’t have to be a dirty hipster to enjoy that awesomeness!

I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but more and more people are now reduce-reuse-recycling, rather than tossing everything out into the trash (which is ultimately the responsible thing to do). Combine this trend with an every-increasing human population that has limited resources, and you’ll have quite a few more people (note: understatement of the year) worried about what our planet’s future might bring. In response to this crisis, many have changed their wasteful habits by reducing their carbon footprints.

Now on to the good stuff: popular places to buy this “vintage” clothing include charity-driven second hand shops, garage sales, flea markets, and vintage clothing shops (although some of these greedy bastards like to hang onto their crap way too long, which means less savings for you). Then again, some good vintage pieces can also be obtained from older friends and relatives who like to keep their old clothing for long periods of time! The advent of the internet has also been a huge boon to the vintage clothing world (don’t believe me? Check eBay then! You’ll see)! Continued

Work clothes are expensive!

How did I, Mr. Frugal, figure this out, you ask? Well, lately I’ve been frustrated with my limited work wardrobe (I have way too many sports related t-shirts [Go Birds!] and not enough things I can wear in a boardroom meeting! This would usually be OK with me, but I work in a professional environment and part of the costs of having this great career means that I need to maintain a certain standard, and style, of dress (not to impress as much as not to be laughed at).

However, I can be pretty cheap when it comes to shopping for work clothes! I often buy things from the clearance racks at Target or the Gap, which means I usually spend very little money, but also end up with something of relatively low quality. So low in fact, that in a couple of months down the road, that $10 button-down clearance shirt will be losing its buttons, it’s going to unravel at the seams and more than likely fade drastically! Sometimes I like a shirt so much that I’ll do some minor surgery on it (to keep it going for a while longer before it totally disintegrates)! Continued

MoneyRemix’s spam filters must not be working properly (I have been getting the weirdest comments lately)!

Seriously, what’s up with the freaking Russian messages that keep jamming up my inbox. Guys, I don’t speak Russian, know Russian, and another thing: why would someone who only spoke Russian visit my site? Sorry if you’re Russian … I’m also getting Chinese, some illiterate stuff, a million words strung together, and even some Swahili messages (I think).

Then there are my “favorite”: the nasty, pointless letters! Really, how are you going to write that I’m a POS, just because you don’t agree with me? I’ve been called a sexist, a racist, a liar, and cheesy over the last few days … here’s the truth: I’m none of the above! Hey weird people who are piling on these messages, you don’t know me! I’m not that bully in High School (I was bullied) or that guy who broke your heart (Ok, maybe I was … if that’s you [you know who you are, Miss Sensitive]). Continued

Most days I get up on my soapbox, and scream at the top of my lungs about how we all should save and live below our means!

Today is not one of those days however … today is the day that I am going to give you a little look into my soul. That’s right, I haven’t always been so good with my own money, so it’s kind of hypocritical for me to tell you to never do the things I use to do in my daily life. Today, I’m going to come clean, and tell you about some of the dumbest purchases that I ever made, in order to show you that we all can change if we really want to. I want to show you that I have seriously learned from my mistakes, and that if I can do it anyone can (believe me, I used to burn through money like I had no cares in the world).

My friends, the following is a list of some of the “buy high, sell low” products that I felt swindled into buying when I was too young to know any better (read about them, learn from them, cherish them, and then pass them on to your spendthrift friends): Continued

I’ve been trying to evaluate my frugal lifestyle lately.

For instance, I thought long and hard about this one question, “Do I really need to take advantage of every deal out there?” Does it really help me if I disrupt my life to chase down a $1 coupon purchase that is about to expire tomorrow? Is the small pay of most freelance work worth the extra hours, and headaches, spent on completing the task (when I could be doing something fun instead)? Over the past couple months, I have discovered the most interesting thing: I’m actually saving my sanity by not trying to pinch every last penny.

I have asked myself time and time again, during this self-discovering period, “Where is that single line between being cheap and being frugal”? My answer: I’m still not exactly sure yet, but I’m slowly starting to figure it out (by looking around my cluttered house, full of these so-called “bargains”). This alone has been saving me a bunch of money.

The following is some of the things I have learned along the way: Continued